Threads
by Stillwaterrs
Summary: Happy New Year to all my readers! Brennan gets his answers and a lot more as Threads draws to a conclusion. Reviews and emails welcome.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

You could always tell a Sunday morning from the other days of the week. Sundays were lazy; Sundays were restful. People slept in, enjoying the respite from the working week or recovering from an alcohol-drenched Saturday night. Offices were closed and retail businesses opened later. There were those who attended church services, of course, but that was at regularly scheduled times, not generating the usual continuous flow of vehicles. The whole city had a sense of quiet abandonment. It was as if the streets were sleeping in, too.

Not everyone was able to take advantage of the general laziness of this late September morning, however. There were always a few unlucky ones called out to work, such as the electrician working at the signal box controlling the traffic light at the usually busy intersection of Converse and 12th. He had the signals on red flash now, occasionally retrieving some tool or other from the open canvas tool bag at his feet. A few yards away another workman dressed in jeans and a faded flannel shirt sat with his arms spread out across the top of a bench provided by the city's transit system, a rounded black lunch bucket at his side as he waited for his bus. In the row of storefronts set back from the street, a woman polished the front window of a cheery little coffee shop, perhaps hoping to draw either of them in for something to go. Neither of them noticed her.

The only thing to make this quiet, normal urban scene at all unusual was the advent of a polished black limousine making its stately way down the boulevard, its tinted windows glistening in the bright sunlight. Inside, a woman fidgeted on the plush back seat. She looked to be in her late twenties, dressed well but casually in an expensive-looking embroidered denim jacket over a solid lemon cotton top with a mock turtle collar, and matching designer jeans tapering into ankle-high, low heeled leather boots. Her shift drew a glance from the man sitting on the seat opposite her. When she did not speak he turned back to the window, scanning the passing street with an experienced eye. Like the two men in the front seat, his powerful build and watchful demeanor identified him as a professional bodyguard.

The idea of having bodyguards was something she was becoming adjusted to, although she still chafed a bit at the restrictions involved. She chose not to dwell on it, turning her thoughts to more pleasant things. For the first time in almost three years, she was going home. With one thing or another there hadn't been time to make the trip, but she had finally managed to crowbar some vacation time into her schedule. She couldn't wait to see her parents, to see their faces when she told them her exciting news. She turned to the window, watching familiar landmarks roll by, noting the occasional new shop here and there, taking in the scene as a whole and the few people on the streets to populate it in a general way, her growing eagerness relegating most of what she saw to the background of her mind.

The stoplight at Converse and 12th turned to a solid red, evidently manipulated from a flashing red by an electrician working at the signal box. As the car slowed, he suddenly turned and made an odd gesture with his hands. An invisible wave of energy slammed into them with the impact of a tsunami, stopping the limo as if it had been suddenly mired in molasses and throwing her forward against the bodyguard on the opposite seat. In the next instant two diamond-hard arms crashed through both passenger windows, spraying glass everywhere. The hands opened, dropping canisters which began gushing white, billowing plumes of smoke. Ambush!

The two suited men in front reacted instantly. The one riding shotgun flung open his door, reaching down to grab for the canister to get rid of it while the other hand dived into his jacket for his gun. A rock-hard fist slammed into his chin, blasting him into dreamland before the gun could clear the holster. The driver had a second or two more. When attempting to gun the engine turned out to be futile, he got his door open and was trying to reach clear air when the electrician, now wearing a gas mask, gave him a chop across the back of the neck with the bottom of a strange, boxlike weapon. Down he went, slumping half in and half out of the car.

The bodyguard in back had grabbed the woman in that first instant and flung her back and away from the smoke, reaching for his weapon, but the canisters weren't merely smoke bombs. They were filled with a powerful knock-out agent, and the one in the back had been dropped right at his feet. Feeling the full brunt of the gas's debilitating effects hitting him and knowing he had only a second to act, the bodyguard croaked, "Go!" to the woman and flung his body onto the canister, trying to muffle its effects. It was the last thing he knew.

The bodyguard's heroic action had allowed the woman to the opportunity to take and hold one relatively untainted breath, and she wasn't about to waste it. She snatched the door handle and flung it open, only to find the electrician blocking her escape. She leaned back on her arm and lashed out with her foot, catching him squarely in the solar plexus. He fell back against the door with a _wuff_ sound. She tried to scramble past him, but the bus rider had flung open the passenger door and lunged after her. Grabbing her wrist, he yanked her across the seat toward the still-gushing canister, hauling the guard out of the way with his other hand, his sleeve pulling up to expose the tattoo of a coiled red snake on his arm. The woman saw his gas mask and knew she was running out of time. She dropped her head and bit down savagely on his now-normal hand, drawing blood and bringing a howl of pain from him as he released her. Before she could capitalize on her freedom, the weight of a hurtling body crashed onto her back, driving the breath from her lungs; the electrician had recovered. She snapped her free elbow into his stomach. Cursing and shaking his bitten hand, the bus rider seized her thick burgundy hair, forcing her face back into the heart of the smoke. The electrician flourished the strange weapon, pressed its short barrel into the back of her neck, and pulled the trigger. Paralysis and pain screamed through her nervous system, robbing her of the little breath she had left. She inhaled sharply, sucking in a lungful of the smoke. She tried to hold it there, keep it from spreading, to continue fighting, and in fact managed another feeble kick at the electrician's shin, but to no avail. The gas worked its insidious way through her system. She slid into oblivion.

Panting, the electrician hauled her out of the limo. A nondescript white van that had been waiting nearby screeched to a halt beside them. The bus rider, wiping the blood from his bitten hand on his jeans, came around and opened the van's side door before reaching down and grabbing her legs. Together the two men threw her in and leaped in after her. The door closed with a slam and the van squealed away, leaving the black limo, its remaining unconscious passengers and the white face of the woman in the coffee shop wreathed in the slowly dissipating smoke.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

_._

The slender cable slipped from Brennan Mulwray's fingers and slithered to the floor. Muttering a fairly mild curse under his breath, he bent to retrieve it. He plugged it into a small sensor and stepped back to examine his handiwork.

As testing setups went this particular rig was simplistic and undeniably haphazard. A mounted laser set at low power pointed at a chair from about ten feet away. The chair itself was raised up about three feet by pieces of a discarded wooden packing crate. A thin plastic disc about the size of a softball had a crude target drawn on it in black marker, and was raised more or less chest high by a metal rod stabbed into the seat. The tiny sensor was clipped to the back of the disc. Behind it, acting as a protective barrier, a scarred piece of plywood maybe a half inch thick rested against the back of the chair. A few feet away stood an old bar stool, a laptop open on the seat, completing the inelegant ensemble.

Jesse could have come up with something much more sophisticated, and would have been glad to help if asked, but this was something Brennan wanted to explore on his own first. He knew he could deflect light energy on a point-to-point basis, and more recently he discovered that he could project a field of electrical energy as opposed to straight bolts of lightning, although the voltage wasn't nearly as high and the energy drain was heavy. Today he wanted to see if he could combine the two aspects – project a field that could deflect energy. For safety's sake, as well as wanting to make sure it would work before he said anything to the others, he had chosen an unfinished corner of the garage as his testing ground, and had made sure that the others were suitably occupied. A peanut gallery was the last thing he needed.

Certainly the idea was feasible. The benefits for the team were obvious. For the elemental, though, it was as much about keeping close tabs on the strength and scope of his powers as anything else. Because they were all continuing to mutate, control of their powers was important for all of them, but to Brennan it was particularly vital. Not only were his powers arguably the most dangerous on the team, but it had only been a year or so since his ongoing mutation had caused those powers to re-amplify out of control, nearly killing himself, Shalimar and Jesse. Ever since then Brennan had incorporated fine testing of his powers into his total workout routine, devising exercises from target practice to voltage regulation. If this test worked it would be something else to add to his regimen. Brennan enjoyed exercising his powers just as much as he did lifting weights or practicing martial arts. Stretching them in different ways was much like working another muscle group, and he took great satisfaction in mastering new ways to use them. That there was a down side was undeniable, but in actual fact Brennan rather enjoyed his powers, and couldn't imagine what his life would be like without them. They were as much a part of him as his arms and legs, and would be until his last breath.

There was, however, another reason why he was undertaking this project. It gave him something else to occupy his thoughts, to focus on besides the darkness roiling inside him. Not only had the recent deaths of Emma De Lauro and Adam Kane been devastating to all of them, but Brennan also had to deal with the fact that he had purposely killed two unarmed people. One had been Mason Eckhart, the former head of Genomex, their nemesis, and a genocidal murderer. The other had been a woman whose name he had never even known. After Eckhart's people kidnapped Brennan from a downtown bar, she had used her telepathic powers to ruthlessly invade and plunder his mind, violently ripping from him the precise location of Sanctuary. They had been about to kill him when Shalimar intervened. Freed, the first thing the enraged elemental did was to kill the telepath by slamming her, wheelchair and all, into a power generator. He then hunted down Eckhart before he could escape and blasted him off a 50 foot platform, killing him as well.

Brennan didn't know if it was his electricity or the fall that actually killed Eckhart, and frankly, he didn't much care. The fact remained that Eckhart and his torturer were dead by his hand. Such a thing violated his personal moral code, and that kind of betrayal always carried a price. Intellectually Brennan knew that he hadn't had a choice; that in Eckhart's hands the knowledge stolen from Brennan's mind was deadlier than any weapon. Brennan did the only thing he could. He killed Eckhart to save Shalimar and Jesse. It wasn't wrong; it wasn't right. It was simply what had to be done. He would do it again in a heartbeat to protect those he loved. In the meantime he would just stow it away in the part of his mind where all the dark things in his life were stored. The nightmares would fade in time. They always did. Eventually.

A couple of keystrokes set the laptop's sequence timer for ten seconds. He hurriedly crossed the ten feet of garage and positioned himself behind the chair, his hands raised along either side of it in front of the target. He flexed his fingers and waited.

At two seconds the timer _pinged_ a quick warning. Electricity leaped across the space between his hands, a flashing barrier of energy. When the counter reached zero the laser fired a quick burst at the target. The beam refracted, apparently repelled by the electricity. Brennan cut power.

Four more times the cycle ran, and each time the beam appeared to be reflected. After the fifth time, Brennan walked over to the laptop to examine the results of his test.

Attracted by the recurring sound of sizzling electricity, Lexa Pierce stepped invisibly into the garage. She had taken to walking the labyrinth that was Sanctuary in stealth mode whenever she felt restless, which was a good part of the time these days. It wasn't that she was spying so much as reacquainting herself with what had once been her home. The fact that she did so invisibly was due more to the fact that she still didn't feel comfortable with the rest of the team, any more than they did with her. Eventually, she supposed, they would all have to come to some sort of working arrangement, but for now she was tired of all the sideways looks and verbal shots being sent her way. Being invisible seemed to be the best way to avoid confrontations.

Strictly speaking, she really couldn't blame them for the way they felt. Lexa would have felt much the same way. She had been suddenly and forcibly thrust upon them right after the deaths of their friends. Understandably, they hadn't exactly been inclined to welcome her with open arms. Jesse had been cordial enough, but then again he struck her as the trusting type, perhaps even a little naïve. Shalimar had been barely civil, but part of that was just a feral thing about protecting her pack. Brennan was openly hostile, whether from inherent anal tendencies or as the result of his not-yet-successful attempt to compartmentalize recent events. She was still working that out.

Well, he could just suck it up, she thought to herself. This wasn't exactly her idea of a dream assignment, either. The last thing she wanted was to be stuck living three hundred feet underground with a bunch of idealistic freaks. But it wasn't like she had much of a choice. A deal was a deal. The organization she presently worked for knew whom she sought. The agreement was simple: work for them, and they would use their vast resources to help find her twin brother. Right now that meant joining Mutant X, and handling such assignments as her employers set for the team. It was simply a matter of agendas coinciding.

She watched as Brennan fiddled with the laser, punched a couple of keys on the laptop, then hurried back to stand behind an old wreck of an office chair with something sticking out of the seat. Something pinged, and lighting flashed between his hands. The laser fired at the space between them, a quick burst of scarlet energy. It looked like it might have been repelled, but she couldn't tell for sure. The performance repeated a few more times. At the end of it Brennan straightened and started to walk back toward the laptop.

"Recreating your third grade science project?"

Brennan looked up at the dry, sarcastic voice. Light shimmered, and then Lexa appeared, leaning casually against the edge of the doorway. The elemental bit back a curse.

"Do you always butt in uninvited like that?" he asked bluntly.

She shrugged, letting the barb bounce off.

"All the time," she answered in an unconcerned tone, "You find out a lot more that way."

Brennan threw an irked look over his shoulder.

"Well in that case, you won't have any trouble finding out a way to get lost, will you?"

She ignored that, strolling over to take a closer look at his dilapidated gear.

"Wow – that's a real high-tech setup you have here," she observed, poking an exploratory finger into one of the many rips in the chair's padding, "Real cutting-edge stuff."

"Bite me," came the surly reply.

She wandered over to the computer to get a look at the program he was running. He sidestepped, deftly inserting a broad shoulder between her and the laptop. Rebuffed, she moved over to examine the laser.

"What are you trying to do here?" she asked.

"None of your business. Take a hike."

"Fine!"

Lexa started to storm off, but only got a few steps. This was getting her nowhere. Like it or not, she was stuck here for the foreseeable future. Sniping at each other all the time (and she had to admit she was equally guilty in that department) wasn't going to make things any easier. She may as well make the first move. She turned to him with a weary sigh.

"Look, let's get off the merry-go-round, shall we? Coming here wasn't my idea, either, so we're all in the same boat. Whether we want to or not, it looks like we're going to be working together for a while. How about a truce?"

Brennan didn't answer right away. He stood with his back to her, ostensibly checking results on the laptop, but considering her words. Lexa was powerful, and her abilities would be an undeniable asset, but she was also a lone wolf, still trying (although not very hard, in his opinion) to transition to the team. Her obnoxious manner made it difficult for them to warm to her. He liked her mysterious bosses even less, and trusted them about as far as he could throw the Helix, but he had agreed to remain with Mutant X, at least in the short term, out of loyalty to Shalimar and Jesse. Whether he would stay for the long haul was still an open question, but for now he was here. It would be better for everyone if they could get along; certainly they needed to be able to work together and trust each other in the field. They may as well start now. That did not mean, however, that he would let his guard down. He half turned, glancing over his shoulder at her, and gave her a short, noncommittal nod.

"Truce."

Not exactly an enthusiastic response, Lexa mused philosophically, but it was a start. She walked back over and stood beside him.

"So what exactly are you working on?"

He stepped to the chair, checking the target to make sure it hadn't started to slip. "I'm trying to generate a field that can repel energy," he said, giving it the lightest of tweaks. He returned to the laptop and tapped a few keys, re-setting the sequence.

"Interesting thought. What gave you the idea?"

Brennan ignored the question, pretending to be engrossed in what he was doing. The truth was that he'd gotten it from a Saturday morning cartoon show, but there was no way in hell he would tell Lexa or anyone else that the source of his inspiration was an animated teenaged superhero with electromagnetic powers. He'd never live it down. That was another reason he had planned this experiment for when no one else was around. He just hadn't counted on Lexa's penchant for roaming through Sanctuary while invisible. Lexa leaned around him to get a look at the laptop screen.

"Making any progress?" she asked.

"Some." He moved back to his earlier post behind the chair.

She surveyed his ramshackle setup once more with a jaundiced eye.

"So why didn't you have Jesse rig up something a little more sophisticated?"

"I wanted to see if I could do it first," Brennan replied, "That, and I figured that this way I wouldn't damage anything valuable if it didn't work."

The laptop sounded its heads-up. Once again energy flashed between Brennan's hands. Lexa wandered over to the laser, idly glancing at the dials.

"That's a pretty low setting,"

Brennan nodded. "On purpose." Another beep, and his hands lit once again. "A field is harder than straight bolts. Takes more control." _Beep_. _Flash_. "This way I can practice longer. If I keep the laser low, I can keep my voltage down."

She looked impressed. "You can regulate the amount of power you put out? I mean, not just the size of the bolt, but the actual voltage?"

Brennan finished the sequence and straightened. "Pretty much. I've had a lot of practice fine tuning my abilities." He didn't add that a fair amount of that practice came from a misspent youth boosting cars and disabling alarm systems. Too much juice on an alarm system wasn't so bad, but frying a car you were trying to steal was.

"Funny, you don't strike me as a fine-tune kind of guy. I had you pegged as a the-bigger-the-blast-the better kind."

He shrugged. "You control your power, or it controls you. It's as simple as that." He moved back to examine the computer's readout.

"Five for five," he mused approvingly, "I'm getting the hang of it." Then he thought about what she said earlier and gave her a sideways glance.

"I take it that you can't regulate your laser power that closely?"

She shrugged. "Can't say that I've really tried. I can adjust the length and width of the beam somewhat, but then there hasn't been any real reason to try to fiddle with the intensity. Not in my line of work."

He threw her an appraising look, and she tensed imperceptibly, waiting for the inevitable question. He remained silent, however, his expression carefully neutral as he moved to the laser to adjust the power level upward. The Do Not Trespass sign had been posted plainly in the air, but it didn't take a genius to figure out how she had been using the more lethal of her abilities. The only question would be how many kills she had racked up so far – and how deep the scars ran. Suddenly he was very glad that he wasn't in her shoes. He had enough ghosts of his own to deal with. He went to the computer and started another sequence.

Lexa watched the test cycle's progress in silence. He had surprised her first by not asking the question she knew was in his mind, and again when there was no accusation or judgment in his eyes. It was just as well, she decided sardonically. He had no business judging her, anyway.

The timer pinged its fifth warning. A sudden impulse seized her.

"Repel this." Her hand shot out, and a beam of her own power lanced from two fingers, joining with the laser's weak ray. Brennan had no time to adjust. The beam burned through his field and the target, scorching the board behind it during its two-second duration. Reflexively, Brennan leaped from behind the chair.

"What the hell?!" he exclaimed.

"What's the matter?" Lexa challenged, "Too hot for you to handle?"

"A little warning would have been nice," he shot back angrily. He bent to see if the sensor had been damaged. She gave him a derisive snort.

"Poor baby. In my experience you don't often get warnings from the bad guys."

"You do from teammates," he shot back, glaring at her, "You do know what those are, don't you?"

Something in her manner seemed to close at his remark. She had worked with teams before, but always on a short-term basis. For the most part she handled her assignments alone, and she liked it better that way. Working alone meant that you didn't have to worry about anyone getting too close. You didn't have to depend upon anyone but yourself. You were beholden to no one and nothing. You were strong. Untouchable.

She half turned away, but not before Brennan caught a hint of something in her eyes which helped dampen his ire. It almost looked like regret – perhaps a regret that she could not allow herself to show. It suddenly occurred to him that she was carrying more emotional baggage than any of them knew. What could have happened in her life, what could Eckhart and the others have done to her or made her do to cause her to erect walls around herself? For that was what she had done, and in that context her little stunt was starting to make sense. Lexa's world was based on not letting anything show through that hard, cold exterior. She had just admitted to him that she couldn't regulate the intensity of her power the way he could. That perceived bit of weakness could have caused a typical defense mechanism to kick in – the sudden need to show that, able to regulate her power or not, she was just as tough, just as bad-ass, if not more so, than he was. He knew what that was like. Maybe, just maybe, he should cut her some slack.

An idea popped into his head. They both had energy-based powers. Perhaps he could put that common ground to use. He went over to the stack of odds and ends in the corner, the remains of his building project, and rummaged around until he came up with three more pieces of plywood and an old metal computer housing. He brought them over to the chair, stacking them so the scorched piece was in the back.

"Let's try something," he said, going back to the laptop once more, "I'm going to program the laser to fire five-second bursts. Why don't you see if you can match the intensity of the beam?"

She gave him a look that suggested he'd just asked if she wanted to help him change the oil in Sanctuary's fleet of cars.

"Why would I want to do that?"

"Because sometimes you want to disable instead of destroy," he said patiently. He raised an eyebrow in her direction. "Unless you think it might be too tough for you," he challenged.

Lexa fired up immediately. "Yeah, right!"

The former con man stifled a predatory grin. People. Sometimes it was just too easy.

"Okay. The best way to start is to use the laser for a guide. Gauge the beam; see if you can get a feel for the power level. Then when you're ready, see if you can match it."

He flicked a final key, then moved back to his position behind the chair. Lexa stood next to the mounted laser, bracing herself. The tone sounded. She held her hand over the beam, trying to sense it. Brennan repelled the laser's shot, and the next one.

"Anything?" he asked Lexa.

She shook her head. "I can feel the heat of the beam, but I can't really get a sense of how much."

"Try touching it with your power," he suggested.

At the tone she reached out gingerly, her hand lit. She had never done anything like this before, so she really had no idea what to expect when the two beams merged. At first she didn't feel anything out of the ordinary. Her beam was too hot, too intense to distinguish the lighter one. Then gradually she began to discern tiny nuances where they met, little rivers of sensation, like feeling a slightly cooler stream of water, only what she was experiencing didn't exactly feel like heat. She didn't know how to explain it. It was unlike anything she had ever known. It was also damned intriguing.

"That's right – feel the beam," Brennan encouraged, "Feel the flow of the energy."

She repeated the process when the fourth tone sounded. She felt it more readily this time. Her hand tingled, the subtle flavor of the beam beginning to resonate in her fingertips.

"Now try to match it," Brennan said.

The fifth tone chimed. Lexa reached once more into the ray. This time she tried to temper her fire, extending her own laser toward the target, trying to blend with that of the beam. It was a strange sensation, sort of like trying to grasp a living flame. Her energy, though, would not be tamed so easily. A lethal bolt of scarlet flashed toward the target. Fortunately, Brennan was prepared this time, jacking up his voltage even as he contracted the size of the field. Lexa's bolt deflected 45 degrees into Sanctuary's implacable granite wall, scoring a few chips but not doing any real damage. Lexa's lips twitched ruefully.

"Not as easy as it looks, is it?"

"No, it isn't," agreed Brennan, "But it's fun, isn't it?" He walked over and reset the sequence.

"That wasn't bad for a first attempt. Try it again."

Then Jesse's voice came over the intercom.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Jesse Kilmartin's fingers slowed and stopped on the keyboard, his gaze fixed on the flat screen computer monitor directly in front of him. There were several workstations in Sanctuary's communications center, but this one he had customized for when he needed to spend a lot of hours working on a complicated project. Set off to the side, it had a partial wall around it for both privacy and glare control. A large central screen dominated the counter space, with two smaller monitors flanking it. The keyboard was also Jesse's own design, containing a panel of specialized glyphs as well as the standard letters and numbers. Moreover, it was configured to run all three screens at once for those times when he needed to search multiple databases at the same time. Even the chair was personalized; he'd taken a basic ergonomic design and substantially upgraded the padding with memory foam. By now it was permanently molded to his body, which helped make the long hours spent there a bit more comfortable.

That was a good thing, because it seemed that nearly all his time lately had been spent at this station. Before she left to go running out on Stormking Mountain, Shalimar had made it a point to bend down and look at his feet, saying she was just checking to see if he was beginning to take root there. This project, though, required that kind of marathon effort. For the past few days he had been attempting to decrypt a complete set of files downloaded from Mason Eckhart's last lair. There was no telling what kind of information they could glean from them.

Mason Eckhart had been their deadliest enemy. When therapies implemented at Eckhart's genetic research facility, Genomex, caused the genes in about a thousand patients to unexpectedly mutate, giving them superhuman abilities, Eckhart embarked on a mission.

First, he would round up all the mutants and use them to attain world domination through the unlocking and subsequent control of the human genome. Second, he would destroy the entire hated species.

One man stood in his way. Dr. Adam Kane had been the Chief Geneticist at Genomex.

It was his discoveries, his pioneering advances in the field of human biogenetics that inadvertently caused the creation of these special individuals – along with an inherent instability in their genes that would eventually prove fatal. He made it his life's work to rescue as many mutants as possible from Eckhart, to find a cure for the ongoing cycle of mutation, and to protect the world from catastrophes created by the Pandora's box he and others opened. Joining him in this were four powerful mutants, one from each of the fundamental types: Shalimar Fox, the feral, whose petite frame housed the senses, power and agility of a tiger; Jesse Kilmartin, the molecular, who could alter his physical density from hard enough to repel bullets to ephemeral as a ghost and able to walk through walls; Emma DeLauro, the psionic, a telempath able to sense and influence the emotions of others, and former felon Brennan Mulwray, the elemental, able to generate enough electricity in his body to power a small city, and to release that energy as lightning through his hands. Together they were Mutant X.

The battles against Eckhart and Genomex had been many and largely successful, but they had carried a price. Adam and Emma were dead, as was Mason Eckhart. Lexa Pierce had joined the team, a hard-edged molecular/elemental with the ability to bend light around her, making herself effectively invisible, and to generate bursts of intense light and lethal laser beams from her hands. With her came the people she worked for, a mysterious, unnamed group that had taken over the funding of Mutant X. According to Lexa, this group had been overseeing the development of scientific achievement for more than a century, working behind the scenes to protect the world from forces who would turn the awesome power of science to destructive purposes. Their intervention gave the emotionally battered team a sense of direction and purpose.

Jesse yawned and stretched, flexing weary back and shoulder muscles. Eckhart's encryption had been a tough nut to crack, but cracked it had been, and data was now flowing through his filtered program. The monitor on the right was divided in half, still running the decrypt program, turning what looked like a mishmash of letters, numbers and symbols scrolling rapidly down the left side into a clear translation on the right. Every so often Jesse would pull a file from it to the larger main screen for further research and analysis, using the monitor on the left to search through one of the many databases housed in Sanctuary's well-beyond-cutting-edge computer systems. It would take him weeks to organize the cornucopia of information being sifted, but Jesse didn't mind. It was important to know what all Eckhart had been up to, because sooner or later they would probably end up dealing with it. Lexa's contact had concurred, requesting copies of all files as soon as they had been decrypted.

The work was onerous at times, but Jesse welcomed the distraction. Immersing himself in Eckhart's files meant that at least for a little while he didn't have to feel the pain of Adam's and Emma's deaths, that he could stave off the cycle of what-if's that played repeatedly through his mind. Research was his anodyne to grief, his usual coping mechanism. This time, though, its effectiveness left a lot to be desired.

A soft electronic chirp interrupted his thoughts. The 'incoming call' screen superimposed itself on top of his research, identifying the caller as Donna Williams, an elemental mutant with the ability to transform her body into water and back again. They had worked with her before; she was one of their outside contacts who helped people escaping into the mutant underground settle into their new lives. Jesse tapped a button, establishing audio and video contact with a young brown-haired woman wearing a waitress uniform.

"Hello, Donna," he said, lounging back in his chair, "It's good to hear from you. What's up?"

"Hi, Jesse," she answered. Her heart-shaped face was lined with tension, incongruous against the cheerful red-checkered gingham curtains in the background. She glanced over her shoulder, then turned back to the screen.

"Look, I'm probably overreacting, but there's a guy prowling the neighborhood in a black limo," she said, "He's casually dressed, but expensively, you know? Like European or Beverly Hills expensive – not something you'd see in this neighborhood. The kicker is that he's got four goons in suits and black topcoats with him."

"Did you try calling the cops?"

Donna shook her head.

"I was going to, but something happened earlier that makes me think there might be something else going on."

Jesse straightened, his eyes narrowing.

"Tell me."

"I had just opened the coffee shop," she said, "I was cleaning the front window, and I saw a black limo just like this one pull up to the light. There were two guys at the bus stop, and they suddenly jumped at the limo. There was some kind of smoke, and I couldn't see very well what was going on. It all happened really fast. Then this van pulls up and one of the guys opens the far door of the limo, and drags someone out. The other guy comes around, and the two of them throw her into the van, get in and peel out."

"You witnessed a kidnapping." Jesse's fingers beat a staccato rhythm across his keyboard.

"That's what it looked like. I'm pretty sure it was a woman they took. I went up to the car afterward and there were three unconscious guys inside. They looked like bodyguard types; suits and guns and stuff."

"Did you recognize the woman?" he asked.

Donna shook her head.

"No, I didn't get much more than a glimpse. Like I said, it all happened so fast. These guys were real professionals. And now with this other guy hanging around … look, maybe it's just my paranoia talking; maybe this is just some big shot's wife being held for ransom or something, and nothing to do with mutants. But the guys prowling around down here have a real GSA look to them. I thought you should know."

Jesse frowned. "That's why you didn't call the police – because they look like GSA agents?"

"Not just that," she said slowly, "I can't be certain because of all the smoke… but I think one of the kidnappers might have had one of those things that nail you with a sub-dermal governor."

That sent a jolt through Kilmartin's mind. He rocked forward in his chair.

"What?"

Donna glanced nervously over her shoulder again, as if she half expected to see someone sneaking up behind her.

"Like I said, I'm not sure," she continued, "But from the shape in the guy's hand, and the way he wielded it – well, that's what it looked like to me. There were also holes in the passenger windows that looked as if someone had rammed his fists through them." She hesitated. "Do you think this could be the beginning of another mutant roundup?"

"I don't know. When did all this happen?"

"The kidnapping happened this morning, right after I opened," Donna answered, "This other guy appeared on the scene not long afterward. He's been here ever since." She paused, her eyes widening. "Hey, I just noticed something – the first limo, the one the woman was in … it's gone."

Jesse leaned forward intently. "Do you think this guy took it? Did you see anyone around it?"

"No, and that's weird." Donna's face was perplexed, and more than a little scared. "I had been keeping an eye on it, but it's like it just disappeared."

Jesse considered for a moment. "All right, Donna, you just sit tight. I'm going to send Brennan down there to take a look around. Stay under cover, and if you see any more of these GSA clones, let me know asap."

The relief on Donna's face was palpable. "Okay, Jesse. I'll keep an eye out for Brennan. Thanks." She glanced over her shoulder again, and the connection terminated.

Jesse leaned back in his chair, his index finger tapping thoughtfully. He knew Brennan could handle himself, but with the odds Donna mentioned it would be prudent to have two of them check this out. His first impulse was to call Shalimar in, but there was no telling how far down the mountain she had gone. As obviously shaken as Donna was, they probably shouldn't wait for her to return. He had no problem going himself, although this decrypt was starting to get interesting, but … no. He grinned suddenly. Brennan and Lexa had been shooting jabs at each other since she arrived. It would be a good joke to pair Mr. Fire and Ms. Ice on this one – and he would make sure to keep the comlink channel open so he could hear the fireworks. This could be fun. He called out over the intercom.

"Brennan, Lexa, could you come to the communications center, please?"

They came in together, which surprised him, and appeared to be on civil terms, which surprised him even more. That they might have declared a truce never even entered his head. He filled them in on Donna's call.

"I've hacked into the police database," Jesse informed them, "Evidently no one called the cops, because they have no record of the kidnapping."

"Keeping a low profile," Brennan mused, "Means a rival player or big money involved."

"Or both," Lexa supplied.

"Either way, we need to check it out," Jesse said, "Donna was definitely on edge. In the meantime, I'll see if I can find out anything else."

"Let's go," Brennan said to Lexa, jerking his head in the general direction of the hanger and their waiting airship, the Double Helix. She fell into step beside him.

"Yeah, but take the Mustang," Jesse called after them, "I haven't gotten around to recalibrating the VTOL aerocoupler circuit board on the Helix yet." The reason he hadn't gotten around to it was that the part in question didn't exist, but they didn't know that. Jesse's aim was to keep them in closer proximity to each other, and for a longer period of time, than the airship's speed and larger interior would have otherwise allowed. Tighter quarters increased the odds of them getting on each other's nerves sooner rather than later. He figured that if he was going to instigate this show, he may as well get his money's worth.

Obligingly they changed direction for the garage. As soon as they were out of sight Jesse let loose the grin that had been threatening to burst forth. True, they had appeared to be getting along okay as they accepted the assignment, but he knew that couldn't last for long. He wondered if he had time to microwave some popcorn before the show started. His grin widened as he once more got to work on his keyboard.

Shalimar strolled in just then, still aglow from vigorous exercise, her hair damp from the shower. She had put on fresh jeans and a form-fitting, earth-toned print top with a filmy little ruffle embellishing the scooped neckline. She draped an arm around his neck as she looked over his shoulder to see what he was working on.

"Anything interesting pop up yet?" she inquired, nodding toward the screen.

Just as he had with the others, Jesse told her about Donna's call, and how he had dispatched Brennan and Lexa, as he thought she was still out on the mountain. He mentioned that they hadn't taken the Helix, but did not explain his underlying reasons because he planned to pretend innocence later if it became necessary. As it happened, though, Shalimar recognized his subtle machinations right off. Well able to read between the lines, and aware of the friction between Brennan and Lexa, she understood immediately what Jesse was up to.

"So you invented something to make them take the Mustang?" She rumpled his wheat-colored hair affectionately. "You're such a troublemaker, ya know?"

So much for subtlety. Busted, Jesse could only grin modestly. "I try."

*** * * * ***

Damien Acosta stood at the edge of the balcony, his manicured hands gripping the waist-high polished chrome rail as he looked out over his domain. Sunlight gleamed on his rich mocha skin, offering a striking contrast to the silver grey tailored Armani suit, crisp white shirt and diamond-studded peacock-blue silk tie he wore. In seeming defiance of the noise and dust being raised from the floors below, he was the picture of cool elegance from the top of his sleek, shaved head to the tips of his polished, hand-stitched Italian black leather shoes.

Hawk-like eyes filled with intelligence and cunning looked out over the bustle below. A sense of satisfaction filled him, watching the rise in glass and steel of what would one day soon be the seat of his empire. Everywhere he looked construction was proceeding at a feverish pace. Three levels of state-of-the-art laboratories were nearing completion; the computers were already up and running. Damien saw all this, and it was good.

He had come far in the three years since he joined Naxcon. It had been the perfect target; family owned, stable, a medium-sized player in its field, a place where he could start to build his empire without attracting unwelcome attention. The company's owner, Nicholas Fox, had been impressed with the handsome young MBA from the first; so impressed that he hired him on the spot into a newly created position as Vice President of Corporate Development. The new addition came as quite a surprise to the other executives, but they shrugged it off. It seemed like such a meaningless title, the kind fabricated as a political payoff or perhaps a token spot to mollify the diversity sycophants. They settled back in their tall leather executive chairs and went back to business as usual.

They soon got a very rude awakening. Damien Acosta took the company by storm. With driving energy he transformed it almost overnight from a staid and stable bit player in the chemical field into a rapidly growing, enormously profitable biogenetics concern. His hand was everywhere, hiring the best and brightest people he could find; building large new lab facilities, doubling the size of the headquarters; and even constructing a second facility. Complaints began streaming in to Nicholas Fox about the way Acosta was ignoring corporate procedure and running roughshod over the other departments, countermanding orders and redistributing resources. Fox's answer was to abolish the position and name the 28 year old Acosta as his Chief Operating Officer.

The changes continued. Money poured in by the truckload. Naxcon was selected for inclusion in the Fortune 1000 as a rising star in genetic research, its chemical industry roots all but forgotten. Nicholas Fox began to hint about retirement, and it didn't take a genius to figure out who his successor would be. Acosta had taken the company to new heights, but in the lunchroom and around the coffee machines there were uneasy murmurs about him. Some of it, to be sure, was the usual sort of gossip that surrounded any ambitious young man that had risen as fast and as far as he. A few said that there was something odd about him, and spoke in guarded whispers of a creepy feeling whenever he looked at you with those penetrating, gun-barrel eyes, a feeling that he was looking right into your soul. One or two even dared to speculate in hushed tones about a new term that had begun filtering through the cloistered world of genetic research, wondering if it could possibly apply to him: _mutant_.

Certainly there was cause for speculation. What was once only the province of science fiction and comic books was rumored to have become reality at Genomex, probably the biggest player in the nascent field. The grapevine even said that Nicholas Fox himself had a daughter who exhibited certain extraordinary abilities, although what those abilities were no one could say. All that was known was that she had spent time at Genomex. Could Acosta have been there too? That would certainly account for the phenomenal rise of a young man in his twenties with no particularly notable family or background to the executive suite of a company like Naxcon in such a short space of time.

If Damien heard the rumors swirling about him, he gave no sign, and no one dared to question him openly. Too many detractors unaccountably melted from the scene, some ostensibly moving on to "other opportunities", others drifting away until they just sort of disappeared from the Naxcon landscape. There were never any 'accidents' or foul play involved, nothing sinister that even the conspiracy theorists could put their finger on. They were simply …gone. Acosta was riding high.

Then in a flash the tables turned. Mason Eckhart, head of the powerful Genomex Corporation before its collapse, was suddenly on the scene. Under the guise of consulting on a breakthrough technology in genetic bioengineering, he swiftly and inexplicably became the de facto company president to Fox's CEO, pushing aside former favored son Damien Acosta. Several of Eckhart's own people were immediately installed in key positions, and money and resources were quietly channeled into new projects. Soon rumors began to circulate about what was going on in the heavily restricted main lab, stories of odd sounds and happenings; of radical manipulations of human DNA strands, of human cloning, and of screams and hideously disfigured corpses disposed of in the middle of the night, the results of experiments gone wrong. Now there were even thugs hanging around, human riff-raff that had no place in a reputable scientific facility, strutting about as if they owned the place.

The official line was that Eckhart's people were perfecting some sort of gene-splicing therapy that would cure Fox's daughter of whatever was wrong with her. Folks in the trenches said that Fox was so desperate for this new therapy that he had been willing to promise Eckhart almost anything. Everyone expected Acosta to retaliate against the usurper, but he did nothing. He appeared to be biding his time. The tension, however, was building.

Then several months later, everything blew up - literally. One night a devastating explosion ripped through the main lab, demolishing much of the headquarters building. Nicholas Fox and two others were killed. Espionage was suspected, although no one could prove a thing, and the betting ran dead even between the rivals. Both were seen at headquarters that night, and both emerged without a scratch. Neither would have had any qualms about killing Nicholas Fox if he got in their way. The tipping point came a few days later when Mason Eckhart turned up dead under mysterious circumstances. Most believed that Acosta had settled matters once and for all. He then assumed command of the company.

The new head of Naxcon was aware of the talk, but did nothing to either confirm or deny his role in the events. He had more important matters to attend to, such as securing Eckhart's last project, code named GS-21, for his own use. Supposedly this was the therapy that was going to cure Fox's daughter of her mutantcy. In reality it grafted imperfectly crafted mutant DNA into the genetic code of test subjects, imbuing them with specifically designed, though temporary, mutant powers. Simply put, it manufactured mutants.

Acosta was intrigued. The project had a major drawback in that it greatly accelerated the aging of the genetic structure, killing the subject in less than a year, but since the subjects didn't know that, he deemed it an acceptable risk. In the long run his people would no doubt be able to mitigate that unfortunate circumstance, but in the meantime he gained an exceptional, and expendable, cadre of shock troops.

Looking out over the balcony, Acosta allowed himself a smile. It was a delicious irony that so many thought he had engineered Eckhart's demise, when in reality he had nothing to do with it. He had no need to. Eckhart had sown the seeds of his own destruction long before he ever came to Naxcon. His obsession with the destruction of mutants, and particularly of Adam Kane and Mutant X, was his downfall, as Damien could have told him it would. All that was needed was a gentle nudge to bring these two perpetual enemies once more into a conflict where the stakes were sufficiently high. Eckhart very obligingly brought that with him with his manufactured mutants and his less-than-subtle determination to collect the DNA necessary to crack the genetic code. His own short-sighted ruthlessness did the rest.

Ruthlessness had its place, Damien reflected, but not at the expense of the overall strategy. To be fair, though, there were other circumstances which forced Eckhart into his atypical recklessness. Eckhart's days were numbered; his cellular structure was breaking down, causing his physical condition to deteriorate at an accelerated pace. Acosta had known it from the moment he met him, which was why he didn't waste his energy or resources in fighting the man. As was evident now in the technology he gained, it was much more to his advantage to be patient. Damien knew he wouldn't have long to wait.

He knew this because he saw it in Eckhart's mind. Damien Acosta was one of the mutants Eckhart despised so. Specifically, he was a telekinetic, able to move objects without touching them. He was also a strong telepath, gifted with the ability to not only read another's mind, but also to influence, even take over, the thoughts of another person. It had been easy to bend Fox's thoughts, to subtly mold his thinking into supporting Damien's agenda, to deflect his suspicions when he implemented the expansion into enormously profitable genetics research. Fox never had an inkling of how he had been used. Neither had Eckhart, for that matter.

A soft warble sounded behind him. He glanced back at his desk. Seemingly under its own power his cell phone rose into the air. It floated through the heavy-duty frames of the not-yet installed panes of special two-way layered glass that would eventually enclose his office to his hand. The name 'Harrison' appeared on the ID bar.

"Yes?"

"The recovery operation went off like clockwork," the voice on the other end reported, "Target Alpha is in our custody."

Acosta's grip tightened on his phone. The caller was Dr. Kenneth Harrison, the last Chief Geneticist at Genomex and a key architect of Eckhart's plan to subjugate mutants. Acosta found him after the collapse of the genetics concern and brought him to the new facility, keeping him sequestered when Eckhart bulled his way into Naxcon. From Dr. Harrison he learned of a mutant that Eckhart had sought for years, an empath whose power would unlock all the secrets of the human genetic code. With her in his grasp Eckhart would have been unstoppable, which was why he had code-named her Target Alpha. She had proved to be singularly elusive, however, forcing Eckhart to advance his agenda through other methods. Acosta himself never even considered her when formulating his plans – until a couple of days ago when a freelance information broker, known to Dr. Harrison from the old days, approached him with an astonishing bit of news.

"You're sure this is the woman," Damien said.

"Positive. We're still running tests on her DNA, but the preliminary examination removes any doubt. She is everything we expected, and much more."

Damien felt a thrill run through him, and allowed himself another satisfied smile.

"Congratulations, Doctor," he said, "You've earned yourself a sizeable bonus. Continue with your tests, and let me know the results as soon as they are available.

"Yes, Mr. Acosta."

"Once those results are in, I would appreciate your input on this utilization of this most valuable asset, especially as it relates to our objectives."

"I'm confident you will not only be able to proceed as planned, but that you could even accelerate your schedule," Dr. Harrison replied.

"Excellent. I'm very glad to have you heading up this project, Doctor. Eckhart was a fool to treat you so shabbily."

"Thank you, sir. I'll report my findings as soon as possible."

The call ended. Damien permitted a swell of triumph to fill him. If Genomex's old projections about the woman were even halfway accurate, his plans were about to take a quantum leap forward. Dr. Harrison had been practically salivating when he brought his employer the incredible news.

Dr. Harrison had proven himself to be a most invaluable tool. He really must make sure that the bonus he mentioned was a very generous one. The mutant smiled to himself. A less farsighted man than himself would have considered the scientist as a potential liability, and would eliminate him as soon as he achieved his aims, but Acosta was far too practical for that. The ramifications coming out of the acquisition of Target Alpha were limitless. He could increase his lifespan by decades, and they would be virile, vigorous years. He could increase his powers as he chose once the grafting process had been perfected. He could even have a mutant army to help him control his empire, and they would be genetically modified to be incapable of betrayal. He could start a dynasty that would rule for generations to come. The possibilities were breathtaking.

No, eliminating the scientist would be wasteful and counterproductive. He had as much as told the man that, and Acosta had been honest when he said it. All Harrison cared about was his research, and having the money and resources to indulge himself. Damien had promised him all of that, and a free hand – within reason, of course. He intended to do right by Harrison – after all, why not? There was no down side to keeping the scientist happy, and quite a bit of up side. With his telepathy he would know if the good doctor started to get unhealthy ideas in plenty of time to deal with the situation.

But that was still in the future. For the time being he did need to tread carefully. There was still that mysterious group of behind-the-scenes power brokers he had learned about, the ones calling themselves "The Dominion" to reckon with. As Acosta himself had just demonstrated with Target Alpha, even the powerful could be taken down with proper planning and resources, and from all accounts the Dominion excelled at both. They could be very dangerous to his plans, especially if they managed to find out about Target Alpha. So far he had been able to stay off their active radar screen, at least for the present, although he knew they were keeping an eye on him and Naxcon. After all, that's what they did. They saw themselves as sort of the overseers of the scientific world, guarding the planet from the potential misuses of science.

Of course, 'misuse' was a subjective term, he mused, one that the self-righteous fools took it upon themselves to define. They had their fingers in any number of scientific pies, with a particular interest in genetic research. In other words, they had their own agenda, probably not unlike his own. They would no doubt move heaven and earth to acquire his prize for themselves. Unfortunately for them, Acosta was not without resources of his own.

Acosta strolled slowly back to his skeletal office, deep in thought, and sat down in a luxurious leather executive chair. The first thing to do was to keep the Dominion from finding out about this morning for as long as possible. That meant dispatching a team to find the information broker and keep him on ice. The kidnappers, of course, were already in his employ; he would deal with them shortly. He should also send someone down to the scene of the kidnapping to clean up the site if necessary, and have any other record of the incident scrubbed from official files.

Once they found out about his acquisition, and Damien wasn't stupid enough to think he could keep it from them indefinitely, they would attempt to take her from him. What would be their most likely move? A frontal attack on Naxcon no doubt, to acquire both the woman and the data Dr. Harrison was collecting. The Dominion had a large, well-trained paramilitary force at their disposal. They had also recently acquired the services of a very formidable team of mutants called Mutant X. This group had played a large part in the destruction of Genomex, and his intelligence informed him that they were the ones that had actually taken out Mason Eckhart. He leaned back in his chair, his elbows on the armrests, his fingers steepled thoughtfully. Yes. A smaller, quicker, more powerful group would attract less attention and would utilize both surprise and a concentration of force, classic battle strategies.

A list of items began to form in his mind, and he ticked them off and placed them in order as one would manipulate text on a computer screen. First, he would alert his people here to concentrate all efforts on preparing a suitable lab setup for Dr. Harrison and a secure place to hold the prisoner. As the Dominion didn't yet know the location of this place, that should buy him some time. Next, he would alert the Naxcon staff to prepare to move Dr. Harrison, his team and Target Alpha as quickly as possible. The data was already being transferred here on an hourly basis as SOP. He would call in the rest of his gene-splicing recipients and have them standing by to defend Naxcon. Some weren't fully trained, and several could potentially burn through their allotted lifespan from the exertion, but right now that couldn't be helped, and besides, with Eckhart's technology he could always create more. He gave some thought to going to Naxcon himself, but decided against it. If Security here wasn't up to containing the woman sufficiently on such short notice, he might be required to assist. In the meantime he would instruct his people to press ahead on a third site he had just acquired. It might be needed soon.

Punching a button on his cell phone, he began to issue orders.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

_The Daily Grind,_ the coffee shop owned by Donna Williams, occupied the corner lot of a modest one story brick building on the northeast corner of 12th and Converse. A half dozen small businesses were housed in its brick confines, with a service alley around the back for deliveries. The parking lot in front offered only a double row of spaces for patrons, but most of the businesses were quick-service establishments, like the dry cleaners next door or the delivery-only pizza joint on the end. Brennan pulled the Mustang smoothly into a slanted space in front.

"I don't see the limo." Lexa remarked.

"Probably in the alley or parked on the side street," he said. He stepped out with an easy, fluid motion, his senses alert as he scanned the area. Lexa joined him in front of the car

"Or maybe it's already gone," she theorized.

"No, it's around here somewhere," he said.

"How do you know?"

Brennan didn't answer her. Truth to tell, he couldn't, not exactly. It wasn't something he could really put into words, a sort of prickly sensation raising the hairs on the back of his neck, but he knew it as surely as he knew that there would be action very soon. This surety was more than pure gut instinct and just as intangible, but Brennan didn't try to analyze or question it. He had learned long ago to simply listen to it and go from there.

Together they started walking toward _The Daily Grind_. Lexa angled directly toward the door, but after a few strides Brennan ranged up close beside her, steering her to a more oblique approach along the brick wall. She threw him a slightly startled look but shifted obediently.

"What are you doing?"

"Trying not to announce ourselves."

He stepped to where the windows began and looked in from the side. There were perhaps five customers seated at the counter or the few small tables. A teenager in a waitress uniform sat on a stool behind a cash register, a Blackberry in her hands. Lexa peeked in over his shoulder. Everything appeared to be quiet and normal.

"Looks okay," she said.

"Yeah, well, looks can be deceiving," he answered.

They entered the shop, and were immediately greeted by the aroma of freshly ground coffee. The two mutants threaded their way through the tables to where the teenager sat, her thumbs working madly. Intent on her texting, she didn't notice them come to a stop in front of her. Lexa propped an elbow on a display case filled with a variety of delicious-looking pastries.

"A girl could gain five pounds just walking in here," she commented, staring at the spread of goodies.

The waitress looked up. She looked a little piqued at being interrupted.

"We're looking for Donna Williams," Brennan said.

"Do I look like her Facebook page? Why is everyone so interested in Donna all of a sudden?"

Brennan and Lexa exchanged a glance. "What do you mean?" Lexa asked.

The teenager shrugged. "Two other guys just came in asking for her. I told them what I'll tell you – she's in the kitchen."

She waved in the general direction of a pair of swinging doors with round windows in them and went back to her texting. Brennan and Lexa immediately headed toward them.

"Didn't Jesse say there were five guys poking around?" Lexa asked.

Brennan gave a short nod. "The other three probably circled around and came in the back."

He eased an eye up to the little round window, Lexa tensing at his side. He gave his head a negative shake, then cautiously pushed open the door. The kitchen was empty.

Brennan pointed wordlessly toward a door which could have led to a storage area or a utility closet. Lexa glided silently toward it to check it out while he crept to the heavy black security door which led to the alley. He peeked through the square of shatter-proof glass.

To the right of the door about twenty feet down the alley was the dumpster the coffee shop shared with the dry cleaners. He spotted the little cluster of people about an equal distance beyond it. Three men surrounded the coffee shop owner. It was easy to see why Donna thought the men might be GSA agents. Two of them wore suits and black trench coats, and from the hang they had weapons stashed in shoulder holsters. A fourth man, similarly dressed, was moving away from the group to the far end of the alley. All three had the powerful build of professional muscle.

The third man, however, didn't fit the mold. He was as tall as the others, maybe 6'2, medium build; handsome, chiseled features and jet-black hair cut in a stylish mode. His clothes were right out of GQ; dark trousers with a chocolate brown, leather-accented suede jacket that Brennan knew must have set him back several C-notes. He looked a bit younger than the others, maybe thirty or so, but there was an air of command about him that identified him immediately as the leader of the group. The others were probably his bodyguards. Their watchfulness and bearing suggested military or similar training. Donna was facing the well-dressed man. She looked scared.

Brennan eased back from the window and beckoned to Lexa.

"I can see four of them," he said in a low voice when she joined him, "They've got Donna. One guy is wearing a suede and leather jacket; I'm betting he's calling the shots. The others look like muscle. One of them is heading down toward the end of the alley. I'm pretty sure they're carrying."

"The missing one is probably closing off the other side," she said. She peered out the little window in the other direction. "Yep – that's where he is. There's a car bumper just beyond him; probably the limo parked on the side street. And you were also right about them carrying. His coat is open; I can see the edge of the shoulder holster."

Brennan looked around the kitchen, considering their options. He spotted a pair of large trash cans filled nearly to the brim.

"There's too many for the direct approach," he said, "I'll grab the trash and pretend to be taking it out. That will give me a chance to get close to the goons holding Donna. When I open the door you slip out and take the one at the mouth of the alley first. The distraction will give me an opening."

Lexa looked skeptical. "You think you can take out the four of them before anything happens to your friend?"

"Donna's a water elemental," he answered, "She'll liquefy as soon as the action starts. That ought to keep her safe while we hit the rest of them."

He gathered up the ends of the two trash bags, pulled them free of their cans one at a time, and spun them to twist them closed.

"Ready?"

Lexa inclined her head and disappeared.

Brennan felt rather than saw the heads swivel in his direction as he shouldered his way out the door lugging the two bags of trash. He pretended he didn't see the alley's occupants, muttering aloud to himself as he lugged the bags, making them seem heavier than they really were. This gave him an excuse to hunch over a bit, which helped disguise his height, to appear less threatening. It would also enable him to hide one hand with his body until he had an opportunity to strike.

Still apparently oblivious, he moved sideways down the alley toward the dumpster with his load. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the two guards around Donna come forward several steps just as he expected, interposing themselves between him and their leader. Their hands were empty, but not far from their weapons. He appeared to notice them now, looking up at the approaching sound of their shoes on the pavement. They stopped just a few feet away. Brennan froze, then slowly straightened, but not fully, an expression of dismay on his face, his demeanor that of a man who was beginning to realize that he'd just stumbled into a precarious situation. He let the bag fall from his right hand as he glanced nervously from one bodyguard to the other.

"I don't want any trouble..," he began almost beseechingly. His mind darted ahead, mapping out his battle plan. He shifted unobtrusively, adjusting his stance, his ears trained behind him.

_Any time, Lexa!_

Right on cue, there was a commotion at the mouth of the alley. The sentry had cried out and was now doubled over for no discernable cause. Brennan didn't hesitate. He flung the bag of trash at the guard closest to him and fired a quick bolt of electricity at the second. It didn't have much juice behind it, as he couldn't afford to tip his hand by lighting up and building a stronger charge, but it should buy him some breathing space. The man went down, stunned.

The first guard had impressive reflexes. He knocked the garbage aside in the second Brennan took to blast his partner, and was now attacking with deadly skill. He sent the mutant's head snapping back with a savage punch to the jaw. Brennan spun with it, dissipating some of its force, and countered with a round kick. It grazed its target chin as the man leaned back, but the trailing left hook caught him squarely, spinning him around. Brennan followed with a snap kick, which was shunted harmlessly aside.

The part of Brennan's mind that was available for such things noted that his opponent had a unique fighting style, completely unlike the GSA agents he had tangled with in the past. The man launched a flurry of kicks and punches, most of which were blocked. Brennan struck back hard and fast, unleashing an attack his own with about equal success.

In another time and place Brennan might have enjoyed the sparring match he was engaged in. It wasn't often that he came across someone so near to his own size and ability, someone who could push him to the limits of his skill, but this duel was taking more time than he could afford. The man he zapped was stirring, and a quick glance showed the guard from the far end of the alley running toward the battle, his weapon clearing leather. Brennan deflected a left past his chin and answered with a beautiful right cross which sent his opponent staggering. The elemental seized the second's advantage to generate a handful of electricity, but before he could launch it the running man fired. A bolt of blue energy neatly threaded the needle between the jacketed man and Brennan. The elemental jerked back just in time, causing the bolt to miss him by a scant three inches. _Damn, that was close!_ he thought wildly, _from that distance and on the run, too_. _Who are these guys?!_ Then his original opponent was back on the attack, and Brennan had no time to consider things like marksmanship as he blocked a spinning kick aimed for his gut. So far the man in the jacket hadn't entered the fray, but how long would that last? _Lexa, where are you?_

Lexa was having troubles of her own. The sentry seemed to realize that he was dealing with an invisible opponent, but he did not lunge blindly or flail in confusion as she half expected. After her initial attack he closed his stance and switched into defensive mode, his arms raised in a guard position, trying to force her in close. At her next strike he was able to latch onto her wrist, which he jerked forward to pull her off balance. Still hanging on, he dropped into a leg sweep, catching her right calf. She went down awkwardly, the impact jarring her concentration enough that she became visible. Pushing up on her hip, she cocked and fired with her left hand. Her right wrist still caught in his firm grip, he twisted clear of her laser shot by mere inches and kicked out. The toe of his shoe slammed into her arm just below the shoulder. She cried out, the slashing jolt of pain quickly giving way to a bone-deep numbness which rendered the arm useless. She lashed out with the other hand at point blank range, sure that she had him this time. He must have had an inkling of what was coming, or perhaps he felt the heat, for he released her wrist and dropped flat, but not before her laser was stopped by an invisible barrier. It ricocheted back at her, sizzling past her shoulder close enough for her to feel the heat.

Brennan heard Lexa cry out, but couldn't spare a glance her way. He and his opponent were still at a stalemate, and reinforcements were nearly there. The situation was going downhill fast, and he knew he had to try something unexpected. He feinted left, ducked a blow, then took one long stride and leaped at the wall, pushing off it with powerful legs into a back flip. His mind was even faster, already choosing his landing zone and his next attack combination.

He never touched the ground.

_What the hell?!_

It took him a couple of seconds to register what had happened. He had just completed his spin when something caught him in an invisible grip, holding him suspended almost horizontally about eight feet off the ground. Turning his head he could see the jacketed man with his hand extended toward him, while beside him hovered what appeared to be a large, transparent globe of splashing water. The realization hit Brennan like a hammer. A telekinetic! He had both elementals trapped like fish in a fishbowl. Now what?

Seeing his adversary thus neutralized, the first bodyguard wasted no time in pulling his weapon with a smooth, practiced motion. He pointed it up the alley and fired. Brennan's head whipped around at the strange sound of the weapon's discharge and was just in time to see not a bullet, but a bolt of blue light like the one that had nearly hit him flash from its barrel. It blazed down the alley and struck Lexa squarely between the shoulder blades, dropping her like a puppet whose strings had suddenly been cut. She lay very still on the filthy pavement.

"Lexa!" Brennan shouted.

Jesse's alarmed voice snapped over the comlink.

"Brennan, what's happening?!"

The elemental cursed under his breath. Jesse must have been monitoring the channel. Unfortunately, Brennan couldn't respond just yet without tipping the enemy that he was communicating with reinforcements. Besides, at this point there was nothing his teammates could do. Even with the Helix's speed all they could do was pick up the pieces. He needed to think of something fast, or he and Lexa were both toast.

The telekinetic turned to the first bodyguard. Brennan could hear the man speak but his words sounded like a foreign language. He was evidently understood, though, because the man bent down to see to his zapped compatriot, who was now sitting up slowly. The stranger walked toward the trapped elemental, the globe of water bobbing gently in place where he left it. Brennan, sensitive as he was to energy in most forms around him, felt the flow change slightly and he began to descend, rotating to vertical in mid-air. He braced himself as his feet touched the ground, facing his captor, his fists clenching unconsciously.

The man glanced up the alley to where Lexa lay. Her prone form rose and floated silently toward them. Brennan heard a muted pop as the two fields merged and air pressure adjusted, and then Lexa drifted gently to the ground at his feet. He knelt quickly at her side.

"She's not hurt," the dark-haired man said, "Just stunned." Sure enough, Lexa was coming around. He spoke to the guards in that strange language, then turned and walked back to the globe full of water. Two of the guards, including the one Brennan had zapped, flanked him. The other two took up sentry position around the mutants, their weapons pulled but not pointed at them.

Lexa groaned and opened her eyes. Brennan helped her sit up, supporting her with an arm around her shoulders.

"Are you all right?" he asked solicitously.

Lexa grimaced, rubbing her left arm. "I don't suppose you got the number of that truck."

"Brennan, talk to me!" Jesse snapped over the comlink.

Brennan glanced around. Down the alley Donna had re-formed and was free of her bubble, casting frightened glances at the hovering guards. The telekinetic started talking to her in a low voice that didn't carry. Brennan looked at their two guards, gauging the distance. Their stance was alert but not aggressive. He would have liked them to be farther away before he answered Jesse, but if they didn't understand English they might think he was speaking to Lexa. He bent low over his partner, using her body to block the view as he brought his comlink ring closer to his mouth.

"We're caught in some kind of force field," he answered in a low voice, "The main man's a strong telekinetic, and his goons are armed with some strange kind of laser guns. Lexa was stunned, but she's all right."

"Yeah, I'm just peachy," Lexa grumbled, and winced again as she flexed her shoulder muscles.

"We're on the way!"

Brennan thought furiously, his mind racing. They needed to come up with some way to get out of this force field, or else Jesse and Shalimar would be badly outnumbered. His eyes darted around, taking in relative distances, a plan beginning to form in his mind. The telekinetic was distracted by Donna. Between that distraction and the fact that holding them must be one hell of an energy drain, it was possible that he might be able to blast through the field. Unfortunately, it was equally possible the he could also endanger them by having his lightning ricochet around inside the field if his blast wasn't strong enough to breach it. He stretched out an unobtrusive hand behind him feeling for the edge. If he could find it, he might be able to gauge the amount of energy holding them, the better to punch through it. That should send a shock wave back to the telekinetic, perhaps even stunning him.

A gust of wind raced down the alley sending leaves and bits of paper swirling against the dumpster. Brennan felt the cool kiss of a stray eddy and immediately revised his plan. If air was getting through, then they weren't completely enclosed in the force field. Their captor was probably saving energy by leaving the top off the box, so to speak, counting on the walls to hold them. What he hadn't counted on was Brennan's ability to focus his power into short-range propelling bursts, lifting him like a jet pack. If something were to distract their foes – say, the arrival of Jesse and Shalimar – he should be able to grab Lexa and blast their way up and out of their invisible cage. Once clear, if Lexa could take out the telekinetic, the tables would be turned. It was risky, but it could work.

Uh-oh. Too late. One of the guards was taking Donna back up the alley. They couldn't see through their two watchdogs to see exactly where he was taking her, but it was a good bet it was back to the limo. Brennan helped Lexa to her feet. Using subtle pressure from the arm he was using to steady her, he edged her toward the guard on the left. She went with it, signaling her acknowledgement with an infinitesimal lowering of her eyelashes.

At some point the telekinetic would have to drop his field to take them into custody. Until reinforcements arrived it was their only chance. If Brennan could take him out with a quick burst, and Lexa could nail at least one guard before he could bring his weapon to bear, they would have a fighting chance. He tensed as the stranger approached and stood in front of the caged mutants.

"Just who the hell are you, anyway?" Lexa demanded, trying to draw his attention away from Brennan and the energy she could feel beginning to build in him. The man ignored the question.

"You seem very protective of the coffee shop owner," he said, focusing dark, piercing eyes on Brennan.

"Maybe I just don't like to see five guys tackling one woman," Brennan snarled in impotent fury, "Why don't you pick on someone your own size?"

The man shook his head. "You misunderstand. I wasn't picking on her. I have no reason to harm her. I merely wanted to ask her a few questions."

"Yeah? Where did your gorilla take her?"

"Back to her shop. Then, to check the car and wait there for me."

"Yeah, right!" snapped Lexa.

The man looked at her. "Yes, right. She answered my questions willingly; in return, I apologized for frightening her, and sent Rael to escort her back to her shop and offer her compensation for her information. What's wrong with that?"

"Why should we believe you?" Brennan said scornfully.

"Why shouldn't you?" the telekinetic returned mildly, "You were the ones who attacked first. We simply responded – in a less lethal fashion, I might add." He gave Lexa a pointed look, then returned his attention to Brennan. "When you executed that rather impressive back flip, I saw an opportunity to diffuse the situation before it got too far out of hand."

"So you wouldn't mind letting us go?" Lexa added with equal sarcasm. Like that was going to happen. She wasn't buying his nice-guy act for a second. They were both valuable prizes to a mutant hunter. Their only chance was to stall until Jesse and Shalimar arrived.

The man shrugged. "Why not? I have no problem with you. None of my people were seriously hurt. You attacked because you thought she needed your help. I'd have done the same thing. It was an honest mistake." He gestured, and to her surprise the force field disappeared. "One thing," he continued, and his eyes took on an intense gleam, "She told me that you have some history with Mason Eckhart. She thought you might be able to tell me where to find him."

"Try the morgue," Lexa snapped.

"He's dead?"

"That's why people usually turn up there," she replied sarcastically.

In the blink of an eye he seized her arms, his eyes boring fiercely into hers.

"_Are you sure?"_ he demanded. Taken aback by his vehemence, Lexa froze, but Brennan uttered a sharp "Hey!" and stepped in, pushing the man back a step, breaking his grip. His bodyguards started forward with weapons raised, and another confrontation appeared imminent, but the stranger gave himself a sort of mental shake and gestured his escort back.

"I'm sorry," he said softly. He took a breath, as if trying to bring himself back under control. "Are you sure he's dead?"

"I'm sure," Brennan said quietly, watching the man's face closely. He was beginning to get the idea that something else was going on here. "I'm the one who killed him."

The stranger raised dark eyes to the elemental. From his reaction to Lexa, Brennan expected to see either rage at the death of a friend – as if Eckhart had any friends -- or frustration from thwarted revenge. Instead, he was startled to glimpse what he was sure was despair in their depths before they closed briefly.

"Thank you," he said quietly. He turned slowly, his shoulders slumped. Brennan and Lexa exchanged puzzled glances.

"What's with you?" Lexa sneered derisively, "You look like your dog just died."

The stranger paused, but he did not turn around.

"You have no idea," he said softly.

The bodyguards fell into a protective formation around him as he started off again, his steps those of an old, old man. The two mutants stared at his retreating back.

"What do you think?" asked Brennan, watching the departing group.

Lexa grimaced, still smarting over the fact that they had been taken out so easily, and that the one bodyguard in particular had kicked her ass. "I'd say he's telling the truth. He had us cold." She shrugged. "Well, I guess that's that," she said, "We can call off the cavalry, double-check your friend and leave." She started walking toward the back door of the coffee shop, raising her hand to speak into her comlink, but stopped when she saw Brennan hadn't moved.

"Are you coming?" she snapped.

Brennan's reply was to start jogging after the man. Lexa snarled what was probably an expletive and followed him.

"Wait!" he called.

The stranger turned, his escort moving with him, lifting their weapons protectively. Brennan halted, raising his hands in a non-threatening gesture. He believed he knew now what this was all about. The raw pain in the stranger's eyes struck a very personal chord, triggering an old memory he still occasionally had nightmares about.

"You've lost someone, haven't you?" he said quietly as Lexa came up behind him. The stranger's head snapped up, and he took several sharp steps forward.

"What do you know of this?" he demanded. His hands spasmodically clenched and released, as if he had been about to grab the elemental by the front of his shirt but caught himself in time.

"Let's just say that I've seen the look on your face before," Brennan said. Shalimar had once been captured by the sociopathic mutant Gabriel Ashlocke and placed under mental compulsion to serve him. Mutant X had been able to rescue her and Ashlocke was now dead, but the thought of what might have been happening to her while she was held captive had been sheer torment. Brennan remembered that feeling all too well. The face he was seeing now had once been in his own mirror.

"Who are you looking for?"

Tension seemed to roll off the stranger in waves.

"My wife. She was kidnapped this morning near here."

Brennan and Lexa exchanged a glance. Come to think of it, Donna said that the kidnapped woman was taken from a limo identical to the one this crew had shown up in. That, and the fact that he had released them without harm put a whole new spin on things.

"I'm guessing she's a mutant, too?" Lexa asked.

"Yes. She was on her way to visit her family. Two men stopped her car, and disabled her and her escort with a fast-acting knockout gas. They were mutants; their moves were fast and professional. I was sure it was an Eckhart operation." He released a long breath. "But if you killed him, then I've reached a dead end."

"Maybe not," Brennan countered, "One of our team is working on decrypting the files from Eckhart's last project. There may be something in there that can lead us to your wife."

The telekinetic's dark eyes narrowed sharply.

"Us?"

Brennan nodded. "Eckhart's projects always seemed to have tentacles," he said,

"Whoever kidnapped your wife is probably cut from the same mold. You're going to need all the help you can get if you're going to get her back. I'm offering that help."

"Whoa!" Lexa grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him back a few steps. "Excuse us a second," she said over her shoulder. When she had him a safe distance, she rounded on Brennan.

"What do you think you're doing?" she hissed.

"I'm offering to help a guy whose wife has been kidnapped by mutants," Brennan shot back, shrugging his shirt back into place, "What's it look like?"

"It looks like you've lost your mind," Lexa retorted heatedly, "You don't know who this guy is, or the players involved. He could be lying. I mean, look at those bodyguards – you saw their moves; you know their training has to be military. Look at their weapons. Why would a guy with his powers need that kind of protection? He's obviously got some kind of agenda!"

"Right – his agenda is to get his wife back!"

"From whom? From some other crazy with his own private army? You can't drag us into the middle of someone else's war!"

"Then don't get dragged in," Brennan snapped, his patience fraying. A part of him wanted to acknowledge that she had a valid point, but his rebellious nature wouldn't allow it, any more than he would admit even to himself that he was reacting out of a feeling of emotional kinship, that of a man desperately searching for his woman. He told himself that he was merely following his instincts. "You can sit this one out, or better yet, go running back to those 'contacts' of yours. Before you came along we were all about helping people, especially mutants. I'm going to help him."

Lexa fumed for a few seconds, then shot him a look full of daggers.

"Why is this so important to you?"

Brennan's jaw muscle twitched.

"Let's just say I know where he's coming from."

He stepped around her and walked back to the tensely waiting group.

"Brennan Mulwray," he said, extending his hand.

The foremost of the bodyguards shifted slightly at his approach, as if he wanted to interpose himself between the two, but the stranger forestalled him with an infinitesimal shake of his head. He gave Brennan a measuring look. Brennan got the odd feeling that the man was peering into his skull, then he stepped forward and took the proffered hand.

"Matthew Star. Matt."

Behind them, Lexa made a furious, exasperated sound. The two men looked over at her quizzically. In for a penny, she told herself. For better or for worse, right now she was part of the team, and teammates looked out for one another – even arrogant, stupid, pigheaded, pain-in-the-ass teammates. Gritting her teeth, feeling right down to her bones that she was really going to regret this, she whirled and flounced up to them.

"Lexa Pierce," she said, sticking out her hand, suspicion evident in every line.

Matt's mouth twitched in the barest hint of amusement. Instead of shaking her hand as she expected, he bowed in a very Continental manner, raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. Lexa snatched it back, thoroughly nonplussed. Brennan could have sworn he saw Matt flash a wink at him as he straightened, and had to fight the temptation to grin himself. He hadn't known her very long, but in that time he had never seen Lexa discomfited so easily. He could come to like this guy.

Lexa shot him an annoyed look and got back to business.

"So the fact that mutants kidnapped your wife made you think it was Eckhart?" she asked.

Star nodded. "His shadow has loomed over us for a long time. My wife has always been at the top of his wish list."

"Why is that?"

"Jaryl – my wife - is a full spectrum empath," he explained, "A very powerful one."

"And Eckhart wanted to use her ability to manipulate emotions to capture and subjugate other mutants," Brennan finished for him. He wasn't sure what 'full spectrum' meant, but he knew enough from working with Emma DeLauro to get at least some of the implications. A wave of still-fresh grief rose in him, thinking of the pretty telempath who had joined Mutant X with him. Before her recent death Eckhart had wanted her for much the same purpose.

Matt shook his head.

"Jaryl's ability to feel and influence the emotions of others would be useful in itself, but that's not the reason he wanted her," he said, "She is also an incredibly gifted healer. In addition, she can manipulate the body as well as emotions, with conscious control down to the cellular level."

"Wow," said Lexa, looking impressed in spite of herself.

"You can see what Eckhart could do with that kind of power."

They could see, all right. It was etched into their faces. In the hands of someone like Mason Eckhart it would be like a genetic bazooka pointed at the future of all mankind. Whoever was behind this had to be stopped. Lexa was already mentally preparing a report to her contact. Her people needed to know about this ASAP.

Watching from the far end of the alley, a dark-skinned man eased back around the concealing corner, the hood of his fleece jacket pulled up to cover an odd-looking plastic and metal wrap that circled the back of his head from ear to ear. Ignoring the suspicious glare of a young woman walking a burly chocolate Labrador, he started walking rapidly away down the street. When he was sure he was out of earshot of the group in the alley, he pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and punched a single button.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Damien Acosta closed his cell phone, not with a frustrated snap as one might have expected from receiving such news, but slowly, in a precise, controlled manner. He set it down on the antique oak desk in the same delicate way. Frustration would have indicated a loss of control, and a loss of control was weakness. Damien Acosta rarely allowed himself to show weakness.

He had expected some investigation of the kidnapping, which was why he sent an agent to clean up loose ends at the scene. What he hadn't expected was a response so quick, powerful and diverse as the one just reported. Now he was being forced into actions he hadn't wanted to take just yet.

He leaned far back in his chair and crossed his elegantly shod feet on the corner of his desk, his brow furrowing thoughtfully. He had two additional problems to attend to now; Mutant X and his prize's husband. No, three, actually, because what Mutant X knew the Dominion would soon know. He must ponder the ramifications carefully.

First, there was Mutant X, the most known quantity of the three. According to his agent, a mutant named Porter gifted with super-sensitive hearing, they had been called in by the coffee shop owner, who was also a mutant. She had seen the kidnapping from her window. His jaw tightened. He would kill those two blundering fools for leaving a witness if their life expectancy wasn't already measured in days. Mutant X was working on decrypting Eckhart's files. Eckhart, of course, knew of the second facility. Therefore, it was only a matter of time before they came calling at Naxcon.

But would they? The Dominion now had claim to their services and thus to any information they gathered. Would they send in Mutant X, or would they use their own people? Long fingers absently stroked the sharp edge of his jaw line as he contemplated the possibilities. Originally he thought that sending in the mutant team would be the most logical course, but now that he thought about it, it was much more likely that the Dominion would use their own paramilitary force. Mutant X could not be counted on to turn the woman over to the Dominion, and she was much too valuable to be allowed to slip through their fingers. By the same token, their newly-acquired team was far too useful to allow their loyalties to sway. No. The obvious solution was to shut out Mutant X and attempt to recover the woman themselves.

The question was, would Mutant X allow themselves to be shut out? Considering their moralistic tendencies and the inflammatory temperament of some of its members, Acosta didn't think so, especially since they had offered assistance to the woman's husband. The Dominion must know this, yet at the same time they couldn't afford to have their super-powered puppets start asking questions about their overseers' agenda. Therefore, they would have to devise some method of delaying them to give their own people time to strike. Delaying Mutant X would also mean delaying the husband. No doubt when the rescuers arrived they would find the woman gone and probably some sort of manufactured evidence that would send them in his direction. The Dominion was very fond of killing two birds with one stone.

Taking the woman had been a calculated risk. He had known that from the start, but the stakes were much too high to let this opportunity go to waste. This woman held the key to everything, including the cure for ongoing mutation. Overnight he could become the most powerful man in the world. The Dominion couldn't possibly allow this to happen. Their interference had been fairly benign until now; he knew they had a number of spies among his employees feeding them information, but that was about to change big time. Naxcon could expect an attack within perhaps three hours, possibly less. It was time to take action. He dropped his feet to the floor and tapped his keyboard. After a moment the visage of a thin-faced, bespeckled man appeared.

"Mr. Acosta."

"Dr. Harrison. I'm afraid the contingency we discussed has come to pass sooner than we anticipated. You will need to wrap up your activities and prepare to move to Providence. I would like to have you and your staff at the staging area within the hour."

The Harrison image shook its head. "Not possible. One of the experiments is in a delicate stage. I'll need a little more time."

"Very little, I hope, Doctor," Acosta replied, "I'm sure you have no wish to welcome a Dominion assault squad."

Harrison sighed. "I take your point. Very well. We'll be at the staging area in less than two hours." He snapped his fingers at a person off screen and rattled off a pair of terse orders. The young man scurried off.

"What of the woman?" Acosta asked, "Will you need additional security for her?"

The scientist considered a moment.

"I shouldn't think so," he said slowly, "The sedatives should keep her unconscious for another few hours. That should be time enough to secure her in the new facility."

"Very well, then, I'll await her here. Be sure all pertinent data is transferred, then scrubbed. I'll have Security send you any assistance you need."

"Thank you, Mr. Acosta."

Damian tapped another button, cutting off the connection. A moment later another man appeared on screen. He was a tough-looking individual, a man who, as they saying went, had been through the wars, and looked the part. He was lean and weathered, with the alert, watchful bearing that spoke of long military training. His crisp uniform shirt had the word 'Security' emblazoned above the pocket.

"Mr. Voss."

"Sir."

"The Dominion has found out about our recent acquisition. Please coordinate the removal of Dr. Harrison and his team to Providence, and begin the evacuation of all non-essential personnel."

"Yes sir. How much time do we have?"

Acosta shrugged. "I'm not sure. I would guess three hours at the outside."

"Yes sir. I have Special Forces Teams 1 and 2 on site now; Teams 3 and 4 are on standby. Do you wish to initiate a scorched earth scenario?"

The mutant shook his head. "No, I don't believe so. Transfer all data and remove as much essential material as you can to the rendezvous point, but there's no point in destroying everything if it doesn't have to be destroyed. My feeling is that the Dominion will stage a quick hit, but will try not to draw too much attention with a full scale assault. Naxcon will have to be completely cut off from our core activities, but assuming it survives the day, it should remain a profitable cash cow."

"Will they use their own people, Mutant X, or a combination?"

"The former, I think, but Mutant X may arrive later, and with them a telekinetic, the woman's husband. Deploy your forces accordingly."

"We'll need replacements in our Special Forces units when this is over," the security chief warned, "We'll be vulnerable."

Acosta sighed. "I know, but it can't be helped. We'll deal with the fallout later. On your way, Mr. Voss."

"Sir." With a sharp nod the man left the screen. The connection blinked off.

Acosta made one more call to inform his site administrator of what was happening, then leaned back in his chair once more. He would have preferred to go to Naxcon to take charge of the woman personally, but his presence would throw an already chaotic situation into further disarray, and there wasn't time for that. She would be in his hands – literally – soon enough.

The wild card in all this was the husband. That he was also a mutant could almost have been expected, but that he was a telekinetic like himself was intriguing. For a fleeting moment he allowed himself to speculate on what it would be like to duel the man. The outcome would not be in doubt, of course; his twin talents gave him too big an edge. But it was something to think about. He had been too long without any kind of a challenge in that area.

But there was more to be considered. Who was this man? How had he known to go to that location? A GPS device in the limo, naturally. Still, Porter said he knew details about the actual operation that most certainly hadn't come from any GPS. Most likely they came from the shop owner, or perhaps from the woman's bodyguards. The fact that she had bodyguards in the first place could be explained as simple prudence; he had to know his wife was a target on at least one radar. The high-tech weapons were an interesting detail. They implied a sophisticated organization, one that he would need to know more about. He would put his intelligence unit on it. Then again, he would be able to find out everything he needed to know from Target Alpha. She would inform on her husband – whether she wanted to or not. Being a telepath had certain advantages.

**********

They brought their new acquaintance, minus a contingent of very unhappy bodyguards, back to Sanctuary, but Lexa didn't wait around for the grand tour. She went straight to her room and powered up her computer to inform her contact of this new and potentially explosive situation. This was just the kind of thing the shadowy group who called themselves "The Dominion" kept tabs on. For nearly two centuries they had taken it upon themselves to police the growth of mankind's scientific knowledge, doing whatever was necessary to guide, regulate and otherwise control the advance of technology by whatever means necessary. They operated from behind the scenes with the utmost secrecy. Outside their global cabal only a handful of annoying conspiracy theorists and a few extremely deep government agencies even knew of their existence, and they went to great lengths to keep it that way.

She entered the code for her supervisor's private channel, a code that not even her teammates knew, reflecting on the man as she often did while waiting for him to answer. As controls went he was all right, she decided. Certainly she had reported to worse. Like most of the breed she had encountered he was a stone-faced, intensely serious man. She couldn't ever remember seeing him crack even so much as a hint of a smile. His whole being seemed to be focused 24/7 on Dominion interests, wrestling with matters that had globe-shaking implications on a regular basis. As he once told her, such things did not lend themselves to levity.

He was the one who brought her into the organization after her escape from Genomex and a series of missteps had left her adrift and heading down a dark path. He was also the one who gave Lexa her assignments, including placing her with Mutant X. Earlier in his life she'd heard he had been a field agent until an attack on a Dominion facility put him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life, paralyzed from the waist down. She had never heard the details; had never asked him or anyone else about the incident. Questions of that sort were not asked if one wanted to remain healthy.

It was rumored that he was a member of the Dominion's ruling Council. Like most of the people at a certain level or higher he had an official code name used when dealing with agents of lesser rank, but that code name wasn't how she thought of him. In her mind she had irreverently christened him "MacGruff" after the cartoon 'crime dog'. With his long mane of graying hair, the full beard and the perpetual scowl the tag seemed to fit. Even his voice had a deep, bearlike rumble.

The familiar forbidding countenance appeared on the screen.

"Ms. Pierce."

"We've stumbled across a situation here," she informed him, "Do you know anything about a kidnapping taking place this morning at 12th and Converse?"

The bearded head nodded. "I've seen a preliminary report to that effect."

"Do you know who was kidnapped?"

"That information is classified."

Lexa snorted. "In other words, you don't. The attack was apparently a professional job carried out by a pair of mutants using a fast-acting knockout gas. A woman was taken, also a mutant. She is described as a full spectrum empath. She not only has the ability to heal, but she has conscious control of her body to a cellular level. Evidently Eckhart had been after her for years."

As much as he tried to hide it, that got his attention in a big way. Lexa didn't know a lot about the man – hell, she didn't even know his real name -- but she could tell that much. This information was vitally important to him.

"How do you know this?"

"One of our outside contacts saw the kidnapping and called us. We ran into her husband while investigating. He says his name is Matthew Star. He's a powerful telekinetic."

"I see."

"There's more," she said, "He's got a contingent of bodyguards with military-style training, high-tech weapons, and apparently the money to keep them supplied."

"Where is he now?"

"Here at Sanctuary. Brennan offered to help him find his wife. Jesse's been decrypting the files he downloaded from the system at Eckhart's last hideout; he thinks there may be something in there that might give us a lead."

He didn't reply. Lexa could almost hear the wheels spinning as he digested the information she gave him. She wouldn't have been surprised to see smoke wisp from his ears.

"I'm sure I don't have to tell you the implications of this," she continued, "Whoever kidnapped this woman probably wants her for the same reasons Eckhart wanted her." A frown appeared on her face as a belated thought suddenly struck her.

"Um… this wasn't a Dominion operation, was it?"

"No, it wasn't."

"Then you don't have any problem with us helping to find her."

He appeared to think that over.

"Well?" she prodded after a moment as the silence continued. Finally he gave his long mane a single brief shake.

"Keep me informed."

Lexa cocked her head. "There's something else going on here, isn't there?" she said shrewdly, "You know something. Who is this guy?"

"This is very important Lexa," he said gruffly, "I'll be in touch."

The connection terminated.

"Goodbye to you, too," she grumbled.

****

"We know that Eckhart was manufacturing mutants at Naxcon," Jesse was saying as Lexa rejoined them around the giant-screen computer monitor in the communications center, "That is to say, artificially implanting altered DNA for short-term results rather than the slower development that we all grew up with. Not on the scale of the good ol' days at Genomex, but he was probably working toward it. The thing was he needed facilities and money. He targeted Naxcon for three reasons. One, because it's extremely profitable. Two, because of the connection to Shalimar; he knew he could manipulate her father by promising a cure for her mutantcy if they joined forces."

He glanced at his feral teammate sympathetically. Shalimar's father had never accepted her for who she was. He thought her mutantcy was a disease which, if cured, would make his daughter 'normal' and restore her to him. The chasm between them had never been bridged, but with his final act he had tried to make some amends. Seeing how Eckhart had used him, he set off the explosion that had destroyed his company headquarters and Eckhart's lab, dying in the same disaster that killed Adam and Emma. Shalimar returned Jesse's look with eyes of sorrow, then glanced up at Brennan as he slipped a comforting arm around her, giving him a forlorn little smile. Jesse continued.

"The third reason is that the root of Naxcon's original research when they expanded from chemicals into bioengineering was based on something called Project Genesis. The file I have is pretty sketchy, but from what I can gather it was a research project started some fifteen years ago by a Dr. Paul Russell. Its focus was on spontaneous cellular regeneration."

"I can see why Eckhart would want that," Lexa said, "It would be the means to restoring his destroyed immune system."

Jesse nodded. "Not only that, but it probably opened up whole new avenues of genetic research," he said.

"Which Eckhart, after he got his slimy claws into Naxcon, promptly funneled into his manufactured mutants," Brennan put in, "Too bad he didn't use it to fix their little glitch."

"Eckhart wouldn't want them to know that his alteration gave them powers, but shortened their life span to a few months," Shalimar said, unconsciously leaning back against Brennan's broad chest, his arm was still wrapped around her, "It might put a crimp in their loyalty."

"I did come across a newspaper clipping referencing Genesis in Adam's files," Jesse said, punching a few keys. A picture came up of a tall, thin man in a lab coat. "It didn't have much on the particulars of the project, but about twelve years ago Russell was kidnapped, evidently by a rival scientist named Martin Lindstrom. Russell was rescued by authorities, but Lindstrom was killed in a car accident not long afterward."

"Convenient," Lexa remarked.

"He was murdered," Matt said softly, staring at the screen. Four pairs of stunned eyes turned to him.

"What do you know about it?" Lexa asked.

"Pretty much everything," Matt replied, meeting each gaze in turn. He managed a small smile. "No, I didn't kill him. He was murdered because he acted prematurely, and in doing so failed to bring Genesis to his backers, the people funding his research."

"Let me guess," Brennan said, "Genomex."

Matt shrugged. "Or a rival. That part we never figured out for sure. We knew that someone was pulling Lindstrom's strings, but we never found a direct connection to Eckhart or Genomex. If I understand you correctly, you're suggesting that this Naxcon might have been some sort of secret Genomex subsidiary. Anyway, after that Russell started getting a lot of attention from some of the big names in the genetics field. Genomex was one. I believe he was also approached by your Adam Kane. But Russell wasn't what you'd call a joiner. Eckhart, though, wouldn't take no for an answer. He saw the potential of the project and was determined to have it"

"So how did Naxcon get hold of it?" Shalimar inquired.

"They didn't; at least not the heart of it," Matt answered, "Someone – we always assumed it was Eckhart - did manage to steal a heavily encrypted research disk. That was when Russell dropped out of sight and took Genesis with him."

"How do you know so much about all this?" Lexa wanted to know.

"Spontaneous cellular regeneration," Jesse interjected suddenly before Matt could speak, comprehension dawning on his face, "Empathy. Genesis was really a study of your wife's powers, wasn't it?"

Matt tipped an invisible hat, a gesture of respect to Jesse's insight.

"Yes. Paul Russell was her mentor. As you know, back then the science of genetics was still the stuff of science fiction. They were only just beginning to come to grips with the ramifications of their therapies as mutant powers began to manifest themselves. Jaryl was no exception. She was only about twelve then; her powers just beginning to develop. Her father took her to an old friend of his, a geneticist, who was able to help her come to terms with who she was. Over the next few years they worked together to carefully map her growing abilities and study the process by which the human body heals, in the hope of one day being able to learn how to induce individual spontaneous cellular regeneration in the average human being."

"Eckhart found out about her." Shalimar spoke up.

"Not at first," Matt replied, "Though once he broke the disk's code, it wouldn't have taken him long to put two and two together. Gradually, though, word began to leak through about what was really happening at Genomex. To make a long story short, steps were taken to protect Jaryl and Dr. Russell."

"Steps which included deleting her from Dr. Breedlove's original mutant database," Jesse said. A hunch that had begun percolating in the back of his mind as soon as he learned about Jaryl was hardening into something more concrete, but he wasn't willing to voice it yet. "I checked. Neither you nor Jaryl are in there."

Matt smiled mysteriously.

"I know."

That certainly gave them all pause. Matt just stood there, his expression unchanged, not volunteering anything further. Lexa gave a little cough.

"So whatever happened to Dr. Russell?" she asked.

"Probably dead," Brennan remarked.

Matt shook his head. "No, he's safe."

"Where?"

Matt gave Lexa a polite, slightly incredulous look, but said nothing. Lexa stared at him, and looked like she was getting ready to demand an answer when Brennan stepped in.

"Look, can we get back to finding out who took her and where she is?"

"As I said, there were two men, both mutants," Matt began, "One of them stopped the car with a wave of energy from his hands; I'm guessing some sort of microwave shot. The other made his hands diamond-hard and smashed them through the windows. He dropped canisters of some kind of fast-acting knockout gas. The guards were taken out almost immediately. Jaryl fought off the effects as long as she could, but in a closed car it was overwhelming."

Tension started to crack the calm mask he had been presenting.

"The only description I can give you is that both were Caucasian, with light brown hair. The kidnappers both had gas masks. One of them had a tattoo on his right forearm, a coiled snake. It was red. Jaryl bit him on the hand." His shoulders slumped. "It's not much help, I know. But that's all I saw."

Jesse immediately swiveled around and sent his fingers traveling rapidly over the keyboard.

"Wait a second," Lexa said, "You saw this? You were there?"

"No," he answered, his jaw tightening in frustration, "I was at home, miles away. That's what she sent me." At their puzzled looks he sighed and added, "I'm not only a telekinetic, I'm also a high-range telepath."

Shalimar started visibly, memories of Gabriel Ashlocke and his telepathic twisting of her mind racing through her. Brennan also stiffened, his embrace tightening protectively as his own less-than-pleasant memories came to the fore. Matt didn't see it at first. He had started to pace restlessly.

"Our contact was suddenly cut off. That's never happened before, not so completely. I've always known right away where she was, even if she was unconscious. But I can't _see_ her!" He ran an agitated hand through his hair. "I know she's alive, but …" he stopped, his hands spreading helplessly. It was then that he noticed Shalimar pressing back against Brennan, the two of them as tense as a pair of tightly coiled springs.

"Oh, relax!" he snapped, "I don't mind-scan people indiscriminately." He paced another circuit, then stopped in front of them, breathing deeply to bring himself under control.

"I apologize," he said sincerely, "I gather that you've had some bad experiences with telepaths. But you don't understand. Jaryl and I …" He took another deep breath, his stance rigid. "Our minds are physically and psychically linked, almost symbiotically. I should _know_ where she is, _feel_ that she's all right, only right now I can't _hear_ her; there's this enormous black hole in my mind where her thoughts should be, and I just can't …." He broke off, turning away, his hands clenching into fists.

The four mutants looked at one another, exchanging appraising glances wordlessly. Lexa shrugged; the Dominion wanted them in, so they were in, and any feelings she might have had one way or the other didn't matter. Brennan and Shalimar each nodded, the latter's posture softening noticeably. Finally Jesse broke the silence.

"It's probably just a sub-dermal governor," he said gently, "It's blocking her powers. Donna said she thought she saw one of the kidnappers with an implantation device. And as for the snake …. "

He gestured to the screen which had been scrolling through snapshots at an eye-blurring rate. Periodically the system would pull a photo out of the queue and park it on the right side of the screen. By the time it stopped it had eight pictures of coiled red snakes. Matt quickly zeroed in on number 3.

"That's it!" he exclaimed, pointing at it, "That's the tattoo I saw!"

Jesse touched the image, bringing up a half-screen sized picture of the tattoo's owner coupled with background information.

"As soon as you mentioned the tattoo I ran a concurrent search through not only the mutant database, but various law enforcement databases as well," he explained, "His name is Malcolm Denton. He's got a fairly extensive rap sheet – burglary, grand theft, extortion – but there's no indication that he ever had mutant powers."

Brennan nodded knowingly. "He's one of Naxcon's manufactured mutants."

"So it would seem."

Matt's features hardened into granite, his eyes as cold and deadly as twin pistols.

"Address?"

"Nothing more current than six months ago. He's got a warrant outstanding for parole violation."

"I'll find him." Matt turned to leave with a purposeful stride.

"Hey, wait!" Jesse called after him, tapping another sequence of keys, "I'm not done yet."

Matt halted and rejoined the group, his demeanor the lethal stillness of a volcano just before eruption.

"What else?" he demanded.

Jesse gave him a sideways look as he typed, feeling a tiny shiver race up his spine. Matt was exuding a very dangerous, even deadly energy. From the hurried account Brennan gave of their skirmish the telekinetic was no one to be messed with. All Jesse could think of at that moment was God help Malcolm Denton if Matthew Star ever caught up with him.

"There's a traffic cam at that intersection," he said, "I hacked into it earlier…"

"We tried that," Matt interrupted, "They threw her into a plain white van; no license plate, no identifying features. They drove two blocks, then turned right, cut down an alley behind a shopping mall, turned right again and fell off the camera grid. They could be anywhere by now."

"Huh." Jesse's fingers slowed to a halt on the keyboard.

"What's the matter?" Lexa asked, looking over his shoulder.

"The video I accessed earlier from the traffic cam has been scrubbed from the site." His brow furrowed in concentration, he started his fingers moving again.

"They know I'm searching for her," Matt said suddenly, "They're trying to cover their tracks. I've got to go."

"Go where?" Brennan asked reasonably, "To try to find Denton? If whoever has your wife is cleaning up the loose ends, chances are he's either dead or he's found himself a hole and pulled the dirt in behind him."

"My people are backtracking, trying to find out how the kidnappers knew Jaryl's route and itinerary. I'll start there."

"But who knows how long that could take?" Shalimar objected, "In the meantime…"

"In the meantime have a little more faith in your favorite computer wizard," Jesse interrupted. A section of city road map appeared on the screen, a multi-colored highlighted cone emanating from the scene of the kidnapping and expanding outward. Matt leaned closer, his eyes at once hopeful and piercing.

"This shows the route you described, with a probability ranking as to the direction the van took," Jesse said. "And then there's this …" He punched one final key with a theatrical flourish. A blood-red dot appeared in the cone a bit left of center.

"What's that?" asked Lexa.

"That, according to one of Eckhart's recently-decrypted files," Jesse announced triumphantly, " … is a satellite facility for Naxcon."

*****

The hum of the motorized wheelchair was whisper-soft as it glided into the conference chamber. Stephen Thornton took his place at the open space of the polished mahogany table.

"Target Alpha has surfaced," he announced.

The Dominion Council's Master was a squarely built man with hard features and eyes the color of flint. He leaned forward intently. The action was just about as close as he ever came to displaying emotion.

"Where?"

"She was kidnapped this morning by two mutants."

"Damian Acosta is implementing his own agenda," observed a woman with frosted blond hair seated on the Master's right.

"Agreed, Dominique." The Master fixed his gaze on his chair-bound associate. "Do you know where Acosta has taken her?"

Thornton shifted uneasily. He would have preferred waiting until his information was more complete before coming to the Council, but this matter was far too important to wait. "I believe she is at the Naxcon satellite facility. I am awaiting confirmation."

"Who is your source on this? One of our on-site agents?"

Thornton shook his bearded head "Mutant X. They apparently locked horns with the woman's husband as he searched for her. They have offered him aid in finding her."

"Unacceptable!" snapped a pale man with thinning blond hair located on the opposite side of the table, "You must warn them off at once!"

"I cannot do that without arousing their suspicion," Thornton retorted, his eyes glittering with annoyance. Gervaye was always so short-sighted. Mutant X was a useful tool. It was imperative for their plans that they remain so.

The Master glared at Gervaye. "Target Alpha is our main concern. This is why we allowed Eckhart to implement his agenda in the first place – to find this woman. She would be of incalculable value to the Creator's work. We must recover her immediately, before Acosta spirits her to another location. We have known that for the past two months that he has been diverting funds to an as yet unknown facility."

"I'll order up a strike team," stated Dominique, her hands beginning to work the keyboard of the laptop computer in front of her, "We'll secure her in our own facility before Mutant X can affect a rescue. Their loyalty to us will remain uncompromised."

"And allowing them to assist in the search will absolve us of complicity when they find she has already been moved," the Master finished.

Akeli Anoke, a portly man with ebony skin and wire-framed glasses, spoke from Thornton's left elbow, his light accent displaying his Kenyan heritage.

"Can we put together a team at such short notice that will be able to deal with Acosta's cadre of manufactured mutants?"

"Acosta's people will be the least of their worries if we don't divert Mutant X from this operation!" insisted Gervaye. Once he got an idea in his head he held onto it with all the tenacity of a bulldog. "You know how unpredictable they can be. If they move prematurely the whole operation could be severely compromised!"

"Does Mutant X know where she is?" the Master asked Thornton.

"Not at this time, no. Jesse Kilmartin is searching through the files he obtained from Eckhart's last lair for possible clues. Ms. Pierce will keep me informed of his findings."

The Master nodded approvingly. "That should buy us some time."

"What of the husband?" Anoke wanted to know, "Is he a mutant also?"

Thornton turned to him. It was time to drop the other shoe. "Ms. Pierce reports that he is a powerful telekinetic. The new energy-absorbing suits our forces will be wearing would only be partially effective against him. What's more, he appears to employ a sizeable force of his own, armed with high-tech weapons and military training. Even more disturbing, we have no record, official or otherwise, of his existence in any of our systems."

"We are wasting time!" Gervaye retorted, "If he succeeds in recovering Target Alpha, she will likely go underground again. The Creator would not be pleased."

"The Creator will be even less pleased if our plans are exposed," the Master rebuked sharply. Still, as irksome as he was, Gervaye had a point. "However, this man can have no more information as to Target Alpha's whereabouts than Mutant X has, else he would not be seeking their aid. We can delay him as we delay Mutant X."

He paused, considering. After a moment he placed both hands flat on the table and began issuing orders.

"Dominique, prepare a suitable strike team to be at Naxcon within two hours. Make sure they're equipped with all the information we have on Acosta's current gene-spliced employees – how many are on site, their powers, estimated remaining life span, everything. After they have the woman in custody, have them plant evidence suggesting that Acosta has already spirited her to his secret facility. I want to use him to deflect Mutant X once we have the woman. Gervaye, alert our Panilor compound to be prepared to receive Target Alpha. Also, find Acosta's new facility. Anoke, coordinate with Thornton to find out everything you can about her husband. That he has an organization of such expertise, and that this organization is unknown to us, is significant and disquieting. Once we discover the husband's base we can make further plans. We may even be able to affect acquisition of him as well at a later date. Thornton, get in touch with our agents at Naxcon and verify that Target Alpha is at the satellite facility. Then speak to Ms. Pierce. Try to delay Mutant X under the pretext of offering our assistance. Perhaps you can create a false lead that can be repudiated later.

He rose. "You have your orders," he said gruffly, and strode out of the room.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

"We're wasting time!"

The others been discussing possible approaches to Naxcon and tactical plans for getting in, and Jesse was once more busy with his keyboard. Matt had been prowling in short, restless circles around the small open area. At his outburst Shalimar laid a consoling hand on his arm.

"Take it easy," she said gently, "We'll get her out."

"If they suspect we know where she is, they'll move her, and then I'll be back at square one." He ran agitated fingers through his jet black hair, pacing another circuit. He looked at them all in turn and his expression softened slightly.

"Look, I appreciate everything you've done. I really do. But this is not your fight. I have to go."

He got three rapid steps toward the exit before Brennan intercepted him by the simple expedient of smoothly interposing his bulk directly into the telekinetic's path.

"I'm not letting you go alone," he began, only to have Jesse interject sharply.

"_We're_ not letting him!"

Both men shot Jesse an inquiring look. Brennan was surprised to see the intensity and determination in his face and tone. Matt met the molecular's gaze with narrowed eyes. He nodded once as a silent communication seemed to pass between them.

"You're right," he said quietly, but his answer was meant only for Jesse. Brennan looked from one to the other, sensing that he had just missed something in that innocuous answer, then picked up where he left off.

"The point is you wouldn't stand a chance by yourself. There's no way of knowing how many manufactured mutants will be hanging around. We need a plan. Now the first thing we need to do is find some way to verify that she's there."

Matt looked up at him, certainty in every line of his face.

"We can do a flyby. If she's there, I'll know."

"Good enough. Jesse, we're going to need a floor plan, an idea of their defenses, and anything else you can come up with. Can you hack into their system?"

Jesse frowned. "Given enough time, yes." He held up a hand to cut off Matt's expected objection. "Which we don't have. I'm sure they'll have different codes than were at the main facility, and the retinal scan from Nicholas Fox won't do us any good, either. We're going to have to try to cut a few corners."

"What about your contact?" Shalimar asked Lexa, "From what you've told us this seems to be the kind of thing they would keep tabs on. Do you think they could help?"

Lexa slid off the bar stool she had been perched on. "I'll go ask."

"In the meantime," Brennan continued, "Shal, why don't you see what you can dig up on Naxcon. Find out who's running the show now. I'll pull the satellite imaging of the area." He pulled the nearest screen toward him and sat down to work.

Jesse had remained where he was, still frowning, apparently deep in thought.

"I wonder …" he said in an undertone. He swiveled back around and sent his fingers walking. Matt stepped up behind him.

"Wonder what?"

Jesse glanced up, startled, as if he wasn't aware that he'd spoken aloud.

"Eckhart knew about the second facility," he said, "It would be just like him to cut his own back door into the system. If that's the case, it may be somewhere in those files I downloaded."

Lexa came strolling back in to the rhythm of multiple keyboards singing and slid back onto the stool she had so recently vacated.

"All they could send me right now is the floor plan," she said, "My contact said that they didn't take an active interest in Naxcon until Eckhart appeared on the scene, so they only just started getting some people in there. They found out about the second facility only recently, so they haven't had time to gather that much information. There may be a third location; for some reason he thinks it might be more likely that she was taken there. He says he'll send us everything they can, but it may take some time."

"I've got the satellite pictures of Naxcon," Brennan announced, "The main drive circles around the front of the building, with a branch going to the rear for deliveries and employee parking. On the other side of the drive is a stand of trees. There's a field behind it that we can land on. It's far enough back to safeguard the Helix, but we'd be in trouble if we needed to make a quick getaway. The roof is possible, but what I like better is this open area on the east side. It's surrounded by some sort of framework; looks like they may be putting up a new building of some kind. It should give us some cover if we come in cloaked." He paused. "Jess, I'm going to send you some close-ups. See if you can make out anything on the electronic security systems."

"Uh-oh."

Everyone turned to the station where Shalimar was working. She looked up.

"A man named Damian Acosta is running things at Naxcon," she said, "Has been for a while. He started there with a brand new MBA less than a year before the company started shifting into genetic research. Get this – with very little experience my father hired him right into an executive position. Within just a couple of years he became the Number Two man there. "

"I smell a plant," Brennan commented.

"I thought it sounded fishy, too, since my father never even mentioned him when I was there," she said, "That plus the interest in genetic research made me run him through the mutant database, just on a hunch."

"And you found him," Lexa guessed.

Shalimar nodded, looking directly at Matt.

"He's like you," she said, "A telepath/telekinetic."

Matt kept his dismay tucked behind a mask of stone. "Jaryl will be able to hold him off for a while," he said, "She knows how to defend her mind against a telepath."

"That's something I wouldn't mind knowing myself," Shalimar muttered under her breath. A shiver went through her at the thought of facing another telepathic assault. Then her screen popped up something that took her mind off that particular problem.

"Oh, great," she groaned, "Guess who the current head of genetic research is – Dr. Kenneth Harrison."

"Who's he?" Matt asked sharply.

"The last Chief Geneticist from Genomex," Jesse answered. He motioned them to gather around as a three dimensional schematic of a rectangular building appeared on the giant screen. The drawing showed one level below ground and two levels above. He pointed at the open area Brennan found on the east side of the building.

"Assuming we land the Helix here," he said, "This is most logical place for me to phase us in." He pointed to a room on the adjacent wall. "The good news is that it's a storage room, so it shouldn't be guarded. The bad news is that the Security office is just down the hall." The screen zoomed in on a large rectangle on the south wall to the right of the reception area.

"Looks like getting in will be the easy part," Brennan commented. He studied the schematic with a professional eye. Tucked into the northeast corner next to the storage area was a utility stairwell, with a twin in the southwest corner. Between them the center of the building showed a more decorative stairway and a bank of elevators.

"The electrical boxes are right next to the security control room," he observed, "Scratch the notion of getting in there undetected. Jess, is there any way you can crack their system from the Helix if we tap into their phone lines?"

Jesse shook his head. "Not unless my search of Eckhart's files turns up a back door in time," he said, "Barring that, the best place to cut in is from the server room." He pointed to a labeled square on the first floor northern side. "Once I'm in I can hack the lab codes and give us some visual cover."

Brennan grinned. "Don't worry about lab codes," he said, lighting up one hand, "I've got 'em right here."

"And you'd probably set off every alarm in the place," Jesse finished wryly, "You'd have Security on us like ants at a picnic."

"So we take the alarms out first," Lexa said.

Shalimar leaned in for a closer look.

"Where do you think they'd be holding her?" she asked.

Jesse tapped the screen with a knuckle.

"According to the file Lexa's contact attached, the top floor is all administrative, and the first floor has open chem labs. The basement floor contains the genetics labs." He touched a button and zoomed in on a section of the bottom level. "This is the largest lab; it figures to be Harrison's. Jaryl will probably be somewhere near there."

"Okay. Once we get in, you and Lexa head for the server room," Brennan continued, "We'll stay hidden until you're in. Then the three of us will bust Jaryl out and meet you back in the storage room."

"No."

Four heads swiveled sharply in unison. Matt sighed.

"As much as I want to be the one to rescue Jaryl," he said to Brennan, "That's not the best distribution of our abilities. You can disengage the governor just as easily as I can, but we can't discount the possibility of being discovered. As you saw in the alley, I can contain a numerically superior foe, and do so from more than one direction at a time. I can also provide cover or assistance to both teams at once from a central location."

"But we can't sense her. We won't be able walk right to her like you can."

"Hey!" Jesse retorted with an insulted air, "Like I haven't guided you by comlink before. Once I tap into the security cameras it should be a piece of cake."

Shalimar threw him an amused look.

"Whoops - I think you stepped on some toes."

Brennan acknowledged his error with a sheepish, apologetic nod to Jesse, "Then maybe we'd better get this show on the road before I dig myself in any deeper."

He led the way to the hanger and the waiting Double Helix.

They had just barely come into sight of Naxcon when Matt abruptly stiffened.

"I feel her."

"I guess that settles that question," Brennan remarked. He reached up and flicked a couple of overhead toggles. "Stealth systems engaged."

"Guys, I'm picking up a lot of activity going on," Shalimar said. She keyed the sensors to zoom in closer.

"What kind of activity?"

"A lot of people running around outside, cars leaving, a bunch of trucks being loaded …"

"An evacuation," Jesse said, "They're clearing out the non-essential personnel."

"Getting them out of the line of fire," Brennan murmured, "They know we're coming."

"How could they?" Shalimar asked. Her eyes darted to Lexa before she could stop them. Lexa saw the look and took instant umbrage.

"No way. My contact was trying to help us. He got us the floor plan, remember?"

"Let's not read too much into this," Jesse said, "They may just be paranoid. They had to know that someone would come looking for her; it didn't necessarily have to be us."

"It doesn't matter," Matt spoke up from the rearmost seat behind Lexa, "Expecting me or you or no one at all, the important thing is that we got here before they could move her."

"The confusion could actually help us," Brennan said, although he didn't sound all that convinced himself. Like Matt said, though, it didn't matter. They were here, and this might be their only shot. They would have to take it. "I'm taking her down."

They got inside the building without incident, thanks to Jesse's ability to phase the wall, allowing them all to simply walk through it. As there was no outside window, they walked into total darkness, with just a thin bar of light coming in from under the door. Shalimar walked unerringly to the light switch, and after listening for a couple of seconds flipped it on. Lexa shivered.

"Well, that was creepy," she said, but she wasn't referring to the darkness. This was the first time she had experienced this particular aspect of Jesse's powers. It was a little disconcerting.

"You'll get used to it," Shalimar said.

The storage room was lined with heavy metal shelving filled with janitorial and lab supplies. Jesse immediately crossed to a point between two shelves and eased his face through the wall, ready to retreat instantly if someone should see him. He was pleased to find the corridor clear, and even more pleased by a second discovery. The others saw him lean forward, reaching through with his arms. When he pulled back he was grasping several lab coats still in the uniform supplier's plastic garment bags, their wire hangers twist-tied into a group. On the right breast was an oval with the nicely non-gender-specific name of 'Chris' woven in blue.

"These were on a rack just outside," he explained.

And would provide them with at least a superficial bit of camouflage. The coats were size large, so three of them had a reasonable fit. Brennan's was a little short in the sleeves and strained across his shoulders, but it was workable. Shalimar's was noticeably too big. Lexa gave hers a final twitch.

"This does absolutely nothing for my figure," she complained.

"Oh, I don't know," Jesse responded, flashing her a surreptitious wink. For some reason he had a sudden impulse to live dangerously with this hot, prickly new teammate. "I've always thought there was something sexy about a woman in a lab coat."

Lexa rolled her eyes in exasperation, ignoring a pair of stifled chuckles from the other half of the team.

"Come on, Nerd Boy, let's go find this server room of yours." She held out her hand. As soon as Jesse took it there was a flare of light, and the two of them disappeared. The door opened and then closed of its own accord.

There was more foot traffic as they moved toward the center of the building, but not nearly as much as there would be if the evacuation hadn't already been well under way by this time. Lexa took the lead and Jesse was content to let her do so. Being invisible was a bit disorienting, but of course she was used to it. They moved almost single file down the corridor, keeping close to the wall whenever possible because although they couldn't be seen, they could still be felt if someone bumped into them.

Lexa expertly threaded her way past people, loaded utility carts and laden dollys heading toward the bank of elevators or scurrying down the main staircase, guiding Jesse wordlessly by varying pressure on his hand. Except for a couple of light brushes that the people were too harried to wonder about, they reached their destination without incident. Jesse took over then. Naturally they couldn't just reappear with people still in the hallway, and he couldn't be sure that phasing the wall wouldn't be seen, so he went the opposite route. Giving her hand a squeeze of warning, he turned the two of them intangible instead, and led her through the wall.

"And that was even creepier," Lexa said with a shudder as they returned to normal inside the room. Jesse shrugged.

"Well, it's nice to know that we can use our powers in tandem like that."

He crossed to the server terminal and immediately set to work. Lexa stayed at the door, listening at the crack.

Getting into the system wasn't nearly as hard as Jesse expected, thanks to the helpful Post-It Note beside the keyboard listing the current login information. He sent his fingers dancing, and in no time found the files for the Genetics division. Cracking Dr. Harrison's personal files took a little more doing, but Jesse remembered that the scientist was in the habit of reusing his passwords. After a quick scan of the test subject files, he pulled up the one labeled 'Target Alpha'.

Pay dirt. Though the file didn't identify her by name, there was no doubt that this was who he sought. The hunch he had at Sanctuary intensified. He scrolled quickly through the data. The initial test results were only preliminary, but after seeing the scope of the research Dr. Harrison had outlined going forward he understood more than ever why Matt was so anxious about finding her. Just reading it made him sick to his stomach.

Then he found her cell and accessed the camera feed, and his hunch was confirmed.

Waiting impatiently for Jesse to give them the go-ahead Shalimar fretted with her oversized lab coat. The sleeves were too long, the bottom twined around her legs, and the rest of it positively enveloped her, giving her a smothered feeling. Finally she seized the end of one sleeve and started rolling it back with quick, jerky motions. Brennan sidled up and plucked at the excess fabric.

"Maybe something in a Junior Miss…" he murmured. Her response was the back of her hand meeting his belly with a resounding smack. Brennan doubled over in an exaggerated fashion, feigning a much harder blow while doing nothing to stop a blossoming grin. Shalimar looked like she was seriously considering wiping that smirk off his face when Matt suddenly put an end to the horseplay.

"Jaryl!"

He was staring right through them, his vision extended outward. Shalimar immediately forgot about Brennan's foolishness and her troublesome sleeves. "What is it?"

"I had a flash from her," Matt responded, tension in every line of his body. He blinked, coming back to himself, and refocused his gaze on them. "It only lasted for a second, then it vanished in pain."

"She probably tried to use her power and got zapped by the governor," Brennan told him. He knew what that was like.

"Where is she?" Shalimar asked.

"The level below us, toward the other end of the building."

"Harrison's lab." Brennan lifted his hand and spoke into his comlink. "Jess, are you in?"

In the server room Jesse gave himself a little mental shake and got back to business.

"Yeah. I'm into the security camera system. I've located Jaryl and have her on screen right now. She appears to be unconscious, but I can't be sure. I'm setting up a camera loop."

"Good work."

"Yeah, well stay sharp. It looks like she's in a holding cell outside Harrison's lab. There are three guards in the outer chamber. They're in uniform, so I don't think they're mutants. On the other hand there are two … three … make that four ….groups of people in street clothes, three to five in a group, roaming the building. And – yes, I recognize Malcom Denton among them. That pretty much identifies them as DNA-grafted mutants."

"Great." Brennan scowled. "Shal and I are going to head down the back stairs…"

"I'll find someplace central where I can watch your backs," Matt put in.

"Okay. We'll get down there and work our way to Harrison's lab. There's bound to be some kind of alarm system in the cell area. Jess, can you neutralize it?"

"I'm not sure I can without alerting Security, but I'll try."

"It will take us a couple of minutes to get there." Brennan looked at his companions. "Let's go."

"Wait," Matt said, "As soon as you see Jaryl, say 'bes'tor'e'. It's a code word; it will let her know to trust you." He made them each repeat it back.

"What does it mean?" Shalimar asked. Matt's lips twitched, but his expression gave nothing away.

"She'll know," he said.

Shalimar listened at the door for a second, then opened it and stepped out, the two men following her. At the corner they parted, each to their own mission.

Jaryl surveyed her cell through the veil of her eyelashes, immediately noting the security camera focused on her from an upper corner. Even though she had gotten a pretty fair dose of the knockout gas, such was the nature of her powers that her system had worked automatically to dispel the toxins far faster than her captors evidently expected. She had begun to come around as they were preparing to do the initial scan of her, but even in that state she had enough training and control to disguise her growing awareness. Afterward, believing she was still essentially unconscious, they had dumped her in this holding cell while they pored over the results. That meant she had a small window of opportunity if she could manage to exploit it.

They would see right off that her nervous system was radically more advanced and more complex than the average person's, and rightly deduce that this was what allowed her to heal another human being. From what she managed to overhear, though, they hadn't yet extrapolated what all that translated to – at least not yet. But they would eventually, and when they did she had no illusions about what was in store for her. In the meantime, though, they evidently thought the inhibitor device they had implanted would neutralize her abilities. For the most part it did, but not completely. With time and luck that could turn out to be a fatal mistake.

Stretched out on her side, Jaryl lay perfectly still as she reviewed her situation. Her psionic access to her husband was blocked, but she could sense that he was somewhere near. That would account for all the activity she could hear outside her cell. It was a good bet that her captors would try to move her before Matt could breach their defenses. They could be coming for her soon. Jaryl, however, had absolutely no intention of just sitting back and tamely waiting for rescue and/or of being used as a hostage. Oh no. Make that _hell_ no.

Slowly, carefully, she revved up her empathic senses and was rewarded by two vastly different sensations. The first was a faint sort of echo from Matt, a mixture of hope, grim determination, and anxiety. On the heels of that was a strong zap of pain which radiated from the inhibitor, shocking her senses and lighting up her nervous system. Jaryl hurriedly closed down her senses. The pain faded.

After a few more judicious experiments she thought she had the thing scoped out. The inhibitor didn't shut her down entirely. It blocked her from Matt except for a sort of general sense of proximity; it blocked her from transmitting just about everything she could do externally. About all she could manage was put out low level emotional waves; more suggestion than actual control. On the up side, she could still sense and affect her own internal structure. The down side was that every attempt to use her powers activated the inhibitor's nasty little correction effect.

Well, nice try, boys, she thought to herself. Her pain threshold was a lot higher than they realized. These little zaps were no doubt meant to be debilitating, and probably would be for anyone else. For the empath they were strong enough to be distracting, but not so much that she couldn't act. The inhibitor wasn't made for someone whose nervous system was as tremendously advanced as hers, so its effects were diluted somewhat. By essentially rerouting impulses through her enhanced network of nerves and synapses she could work her way around the device and eventually disengage it. It would take time and concentration, but she could do it. After that, it would be time for some major payback, particularly if she could get her hands on the two that kidnapped her. Inhibitor or no inhibitor, she would absolutely even the score and then some. She suppressed the wicked grin that threatened to blossom on her lips. It was a most satisfying thought, but first things first. She took a deep breath and began to concentrate, pulling her focus deep inside.

She had almost finished mapping a way around that hellish device's influence when she heard voices out in the control area, and a couple of strange thumping sounds. Now there was a single set of footsteps coming toward her, footsteps she knew for certain did not belong to Matt. Damn! She had been so close! Well, no help for it now. If someone was coming to move her, that someone would have to deactivate the force field keeping her inside the cell first. This might be her only chance.

The visitor was a tall, dark-haired man in a lab coat, maybe 6'4 or 5", about thirty, powerfully built and very good-looking. A plan quickly formed in her mind. He paused to one side of the doorway. She heard a _zzzzzt _sort of sound like something shorting out, but couldn't see what he did to cause it. The field, however, faded.

She raised her head as he entered.

"Wow. Now THAT's what I call an upgrade," she murmured, giving him an admiring, very blatant head-to-toe appraisal that nearly made him blush, a slow, provocative smile spreading on her lips.

"What?" Her reaction was so far from what he was expecting that Brennan forgot about the code word he was to give her right away_._ She uncoiled like a stretching cat and rose from the bench, swaying seductively toward him.

"My last interrogator was short, fat, had bad hair and worse breath," she explained, inventing on the spot. She locked his gaze with a pair of incredibly vivid green eyes. "You're a major improvement." Her smile widened, her gaze roving pointedly and appreciatively over his body from his broad shoulders and muscular arms, across his chest and stomach, finally coming to rest on a certain area some inches below the belt. "And you obviously work out. _Damn_, you're hot!"

Huh? Brennan had been prepared for fear, desperation, combativeness, even for her to still be zombied out from the gas and the sub-dermal governor, but he hadn't expected her to try to seduce him. And damned if he wasn't half tempted; with those luminous emerald eyes and lustrous burgundy hair she was drop-dead stunning, and practically radiated sexual allure. But the woman was married! Totally knocked off his game by her approach, Brennan had to give himself a firm mental shake. He stepped forward.

"No, I'm not here to interrogate you, I'm here to …."

His words finished in a scream as she suddenly lashed out with a viciously effective kick, her heel connecting to his right knee with a science and force that ripped his ACL like so much paper. He dropped in his tracks like a sledgehammered bull.

Barely breaking stride, Jaryl leaped lightly over his writhing form and darted for the door. Chances were that Matt's people would have engineered a camera loop right off, but that scream had to have alerted others. She needed to move fast. At the door, though, she couldn't resist giving him a mischievous little wave.

"Thanks for getting the door, Handsome. Toodles."

Before she could take another step a petite blond woman was suddenly before her, her eyes glowing yellow like a cat. Jaryl backed up hastily.

_. _"Whoops. Spoke too soon."

"What the hell?" Shalimar's eyes darted to Brennan collapsed on the floor. Both women dropped into a fighting stance, squaring off, but before the first punch could be thrown the elemental rapped out a single word.

"_Bes'tor'e!_"

Jaryl froze, her attack aborted as if Brennan had hit her with one of his electrical arcs. Turning slowly, she stared at the big man with widened eyes.

"What did you say?"

Cursing himself for forgetting his instructions and gripping his injured knee, his face contorted with pain, Brennan repeated the word. "We're here with Matt," he rasped, "We came to get you out. He told me to say that."

"He would," she muttered to herself, her expression one that promised her husband retribution later. Brennan saw the look, but was in too much pain to wonder what it meant. Shalimar came over and knelt by his side.

"Great," she said disgustedly, "Just great." So much for their timetable. Already his knee was swelling like a beach ball, the denim tightening around it.

Jaryl came back and dropped beside Shalimar.

"I'm sorry," she said sincerely, "I thought you were one of the bad guys." Brennan shook his head.

"My fault," he panted, "Matt told me to say that as soon as I saw you. You threw me off balance."

She shrugged sheepishly. "When in doubt, do the unexpected. Misdirection can be a very useful weapon."

"You'll get no argument from me."

Shalimar took his arm and laid it across her shoulders.

"Come on," she said, "We have to get out of here. Even though Jesse cut the alarm and we took out the guards, someone may have heard you scream." She started to position her arms around his back and under his knees.

"Don't even think about it," he objected, removing his arm. It was obvious what she had in mind. It was bad enough that his own stupidity had reduced him to a cripple, but he'd be damned if he was going to let her carry him through the building. Shalimar returned his arm somewhat more forcefully to where it was and held it there.

"Get over it," she returned impatiently, "I realize it'll be a blow to your ego, but we've got to move." She leaned closer, and a wicked smile touched her lips; she couldn't resist getting in a little dig. "Maybe this will remind you not to underestimate women."

Brennan shot a withering glare at her. "Just help me up," he growled. He started to shift to get in position to rise, and had to fight back a gasp as a fresh knife of pain stabbed through his knee. Jaryl stayed him with a hand on his leg.

"I can block the pain somewhat by utilizing pressure points," she offered, "That will have to do until we can get out of here – unless you know of a way to get this damn thing off."

She pointed to the back of her neck. Brennan grimaced, cursing himself for an idiot. In all this he had forgotten momentarily that she was an empath. "Turn around," he grunted.

Thinking he had a tool to remove the device, she obeyed, pulling her thick hair out of the way_._ She felt a slight pressure on her neck as he placed his finger on the small black circlet. There was another short _zzzz_, and a light burst of static brushed her neck. Immediately a torrent of thoughts and emotions flooded her mind, only instead of being inundated, it felt as if she had been trapped underwater and was only now breaking the surface. She inhaled sharply, sucking in what felt like the first clean breath she'd had since this whole thing started, her eyes closing as she took it all in, reveling in the sheer exultation of the psychic link she shared with her husband being restored in full and glorious splendor. Words, and thoughts for which there were no words, flashed back and forth in pure and instantaneous communication. The sub-dermal governor tumbled to the floor.

"We've got company."

Shalimar had gone to the cell doorway and was now peering into the outer chamber. There were three of them, her senses told her. They had seen their fellows unconscious on the floor and were approaching cautiously, for all the good it would do them. The feral glided out of the cell.

Brennan groaned as he struggled to rise, bringing Jaryl back to earth. She quickly stopped him.

"Easy, Brennan," she said. She placed her hand lightly on his swollen knee. "Yep – tore the ACL. I do good work."

Brennan looked at her in surprise.

"You know my name?"

Jaryl waved dismissingly. "Matt filled me in telepathically."

Before the big man could respond further, a comfortable warmth began spreading through his knee. The pain melted away. After only a few seconds she removed her hand. Brennan flexed the injured joint experimentally, and was amazed to find that it felt completely normal.

A series of thuds brought them both to their feet. "Sounds like Shalimar is having fun," Jaryl commented as they darted through the door. They stopped when they saw the lithe blonde standing amid what was now a half dozen uniformed and thoroughly unconscious security men. Seeing that she had everything under control, they stepped forward to join her.

A sudden movement at the far end of the room made them all tense. A man in a rough shirt and faded jeans had darted into the room and ducked behind a counter for protection. Jaryl recognized his sense at once as the molecular mutant who had stopped her car with a microwave burst.

"Well, Merry Christmas," she breathed. Santa Claus had indeed come to town, and brought her one of the two presents she was hoping for. Brennan and Shalimar dived for cover in opposite directions, but Jaryl actually moved toward him, a seraphic grin spreading on her face. The man popped up, raising his hands to fire a point-blank blast of microwave energy at her. To the side Brennan also powered up, but she was in his line of fire. Her eyes lit, becoming pools of glowing emerald.

They heard a series of soft popping sounds, punctuated by an agonized scream. The microwave mutant stood frozen in total shock and anguish, staring at his hands and fingers now suddenly bent into a series of unnatural angles. Jaryl reached over the counter, seized a fistful of his shirt and hauled him close.

"You now have your own personal set of maracas," she informed him cheerfully, nodding at his multiply-fractured hands. Her voice dropped to a lethal whisper. "Come near me again and I won't stop there." Terrified understanding crept into his eyes. She nodded approvingly and reached out again with her power. "Nighty-night."

The kidnapper made a sort of gurgling sound, and his eyes rolled back in his head. Jaryl released him to let him slide to the floor.

Shalimar came around the counter to stare in awe at the dead-to-the-world kidnapper.

"What did you do?" she asked.

"Doubled the number of bones in his hands for openers," the empath answered nonchalantly, "What I can join I can also, to a point, separate – like muscle tissue or bone marrow."

"You don't have to have physical contact to use your powers?"

"No. It's a lot harder, but I can still be effective under certain circumstances," she replied, "Distance and complexity are the major factors."

Brennan ranged up beside them, his arms raised as if to shepherd them on their way. At this silent signal Shalimar led the way from the holding area. Remembering something he wanted to ask, Brennan fell in behind Jaryl.

"That code word – what does it mean?" he asked.

Jaryl grimaced and shot a disgusted look and equally disgusted thought at the ceiling.

"It means 'behave'."

Suddenly Shalimar spread her arms, stopping them, her body going wire-tense. She took a step back, then another, forcing them back as well. Brennan didn't waste his breath asking her what the matter was. He could already feel it in bristling of the short hair on the back of his neck.

A group of five mutants, backed by an equal number of uniformed security people with drawn electro-clubs, entered the chamber as the trio slowly retreated. A rough-looking man with greasy hair and mismatched teeth held stood in the front, his fingers slowly and deliberately folding into a hamlike fist. His lips twisted back in a predatory grin.

"Going somewhere?"


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Shalimar's eyes narrowed to catlike slits of smoldering amber.

"Yeah – through you."

She was on him before he could even process the move, nearly outracing the flash of lighting that struck the mutant on his left. Her punch bloodied his nose and probably would have broken it had her swing not been somewhat impaired by the cloying lab coat. Her back kick at a second attacker, a Naxcon guard, was equally hampered, just slowing him down briefly. Frustrated, she twirled out of the coat and flung it into the second man's face, her fist following by a millisecond before he could clear the obstruction. Ducking a blow from behind on pure instinct, she pivoted past the greasy-haired man's striking arm and snapped an elbow into his jaw with such force that teeth spit from his mouth. He dropped like a sack of grain.

His lab coat straining across his shoulders, Brennan followed his quick shot by charging the blue-shirted pair nearest to the man he felled. An iron forearm blocked the swinging club of one guard; almost simultaneously he lashed out to the side with his foot, tagging the guard's partner with a solid shot to the solar plexus. This man fell back, affording Brennan the opportunity to spin back to the first and connect with a back hammer blow. He evaded a weak return swing, then dropped into a leg sweep. The impetus against his lower calves kicked the man nearly horizontal, and while still in a crouch Brennan took advantage of the vacated space to shoot a fistful of lightning over the guard's stomach, nearly singeing the man's shirt before striking the guard he had kicked.

Jaryl had scuttled a little way to one side, a frightened look on her face. A towering brute of a man who had the bearlike countenance of an ursine feral saw her fear and singled her out. Grinning evilly, he lumbered forward. Jaryl's expression became one of terror, her emerald green eyes nearly glowing with it. She pressed herself flat against a tall metal cabinet. Brennan and Shalimar were far too busy to help. His grin widening, the ursine reached for her with a hand the size of a dinner plate.

In that instant two things happened. The mammoth halted, bewildered by the fact that he suddenly was receiving no input from his optic nerves, as if his vision had been blocked somehow. At the same time Jaryl's demeanor changed dramatically from prey to predator. The empath lashed out as she had earlier, her heel connecting violently with the side of the giant feral's knee. Blind and swearing in agony, he crashed ingloriously onto his uninjured knee to something more her size, one arm sweeping out to try to engulf her. She ducked easily beneath his flailing grasp and rammed a foot into his exposed gut, driving the breath from his body with a loud _wuff_. She then finished the job by ripping a fire extinguisher from its wall brackets and swinging it in a nearly 300 degree arc with all the force she could muster. It struck the side of his head with a mushy crunch like the sound of a squashed melon. Groaning, he flopped over onto his side with a floor-jarring thud and did not move again. "Sucker!" Jaryl muttered, and moved to on to her next opponent.

"Son of a ….!"

In the server room Jesse bit off an expletive as he saw Shalimar leap into action and sent his fingers flying over the keyboard. Lexa immediately abandoned her post at the door.

"What's wrong?" she demanded, looking over his shoulder at the computer monitor. Seeing the battle exploding on the screen she really didn't require an answer, but Jesse gave her one anyway.

"They've been made!" he said, his reply only briefly interrupting a string of muttered invective. That was the short story, but the truth was that he was cursing himself far more than the forces now attacking Brennan and Shalimar. This was _his_ monumental screwup. He had no business allowing his fixation with the empath to distract him from doing his job. What difference did it make that he met her two years ago under another name? So what if she had found him bleeding to death with a bullet in his chest, that she had healed him and then vanished from his life like smoke on a breeze despite all his efforts to find her? He should have been watching his teammates' backs; should have seen the bad guys approaching and warned them before they got to the lab. Now their lives and the mission were in danger, and all hell was breaking loose.

"Then what are you doing?" Lexa demanded, "Shouldn't we go help them?"

Jesse shook his head. There were already five down by his count; at that rate they'd never get to them in time. "We'll help them more if we can slow down the reinforcements." He could see on the cameras that word was spreading to the other roaming teams about the altercation in Dr. Harrison's lab. Unfortunately, as he was finding out now, this place wasn't nearly as wired as Sanctuary, which limited his options significantly. He had already cut off the alarms; about all he could do now was to shut down the phones and disconnect their satellite link -- for all the good that would do. This system wasn't sophisticated enough to block walkie-talkies, which several of both the security guards and their altered counterparts had and were now using to coordinate their movements. It also didn't block cell phones, which added the possibility of outside backup to an already volatile mix. What else could he do? He stripped off his lab coat – there would be action soon, and he couldn't afford to have it hinder him at a crucial moment. Its value as camouflage was over. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Lexa do the same.

He watched two groups of what were likely gene-spliced mutants spill from the security office and split up, one headed toward the doors leading to the central staircase, the other taking the back way toward the northeast stairwell. If this had been Sanctuary's system he could slow down the first group by electronically locking the double doors connecting the east wing with the building center. But it wasn't. Nor was there any way he could he beat them to the doors and lock or block them manually. Short of morphing into Luke Skywalker and using the Force there wasn't anything he could do to delay them.

No sooner did that fruitless thought enter his head when he had the oddest sensation; a sort of awareness making the short hair on the back of his neck stand up, as if someone was looking over his shoulder – someone who wasn't Lexa. He looked around, but there was no one there.

"What?" Lexa asked.

Jesse shook his head. "Nothing," he said, and turned back to the screen. The odd feeling persisted. He dismissed it in favor of the more important priority – what to do about the gang of mutants about to come through the set of double doors. Would they head down the center steps? Probably. That was the quickest way to get to Harrison's lab. The odds facing Shal and Brennan were about to get worse, much worse. He and Lexa had to get down there on the double. He would wait just long enough to verify their direction.

Then on the screen he saw a length of cord rip itself off a nearby machine and wrap itself securely around the door handles just as the group tried to push them open from the other side. The group leader bounced off the right door with an angry exclamation, rubbing his forehead. Jesse released a breath that he didn't realize he'd been holding. That must be Matt's doing; for a moment Jesse had completely forgotten about him. Now he remembered Matt saying that he would back up both teams from a central location. He surmised that the telekinetic had probably stationed himself near the circular stairway in the middle of the building since he would have to be able to see the doors to tie them off telekinetically. Jesse didn't know a whole lot about telekinesis, but the research he had done in the past suggested that it needed visual contact to be effective, at least most of the time. That made sense.

Flicking the screen to view the camera on the other side of the doors, he watched the group of spliced mutants begin pounding on them, trying to force them open. A couple of the blows were impressive enough to bend the hinges. The doors held, but from the way they creaked with each blow they wouldn't hold for long. Truthfully, Jesse was surprised they hadn't already given way. He guessed that Matt might be reinforcing them telekinetically, but he couldn't be sure.

Shalimar used an arm drag to hurl the guard lunging at her over a desk, sweeping it clean and dragging the contents with him in an avalanche of crashing plastic and flying debris. He wasn't done yet, but he was slowed down, so her senses dropped his immediate threat level a notch even as they automatically marked the positions of their remaining foes. She was both pleased and slightly piqued at what they told her. On the one hand, the odds weren't nearly as bad as they were a moment ago. By striking together hard and fast they had already managed to take out half of the attacking force. This was where their experience and teamwork had stood them in good stead; she and Brennan had worked together for so long that he had known nearly to the instant when she was going to attack Greasy-Hair. By the same token she had known instinctively that he would zap the mutant to the left of her target because this would effectively divide the group between them, allowing them to more or less protect each other's backs. Even Jaryl had taken one out, and the largest one to boot. She may not be the skilled fighter the other two were, but she was obviously capable of taking care of herself in most situations; witness the kidnapper that she disabled. He was still out like a light behind the counter where she had dumped him.

By prior agreement they had targeted the manufactured mutants first, believing them to be more dangerous than the Naxcon guards even with their electrically-charged weapons. They were at least a relatively known quantity. Now three of the enhanced fighters were down. The remaining group consisted of a woman in a green leather miniskirt with spiky green hair and pale Gothic makeup, a short, solidly built man with sandy hair and three uniformed guards.

Make that two, she thought to herself as her back-flip kick caught one right in the chin. She risked a quick glance around. Brennan was going toe-to-toe with a burly guard who was every bit as tall as he. He had dropped his club, but his fighting style bespoke advanced military training. Jaryl had her hands full with the sandy-haired man. He appeared to be a teleporter, popping in and out all around her in rapid sequence, striking and disappearing before she could respond. She was, however, keeping him busy.

On the other hand Shalimar felt a slight pang of regret because she was running out of opponents. There was no sport, no challenge in fighting most ordinary people because with her powers the outcome was clear from the start. Only with other mutants or disparate numbers could she let loose a little. A part of her reveled in the violence, felt it sing through her veins, ignited by the rush of battle and the scent of an enemy's blood. She could hear that part now, speaking to her in silky, seductive whispers. _You have your prey. Rend it. Tear it. Feast on it._ She was used to the whispers. She had long ago accepted that aspect of her nature, this jungle cat that endlessly prowled the cage in her soul. It was a part of her, the wild, untamed part that for the most part she kept well restrained.

She ducked a swing and replied with a left that sent a guard spinning but not out of the fight. The beast clawed at the mental lock, baring its fangs, snarling its demand for release. It was always like this in the heat of battle, but lately the growls had been getting more insistent. She knew why. They had been getting louder since that night a few weeks ago, the night she had for just a few seconds flung wide the cage door and allowed the beast to roar free. It had been right after Adam and Emma died; when Eckhart's people had kidnapped and tortured Brennan. One of the gene-spliced mutants had been on the point of killing him when Shalimar intervened. Seeing his peril and outraged at what they had done to him, she had allowed the beast to burst forth and exact its terrible retribution. Eckhart hadn't been the only one to die that day.

Sometimes in the small hours of the night a tiny thread of fear would creep into the recesses of her mind, a fear that one day the creature would claw free from its cage and that she wouldn't be able to force it back inside. She had seen it happen to another feral several months ago. His name was Michael.

The local press had been having a field day over reports of a 'creature' loose in the woods several miles north of the city. Over a six week period several hikers had been found mauled to death. Mutant X had quietly joined the throngs of monster hunters to investigate. The 'creature' had turned out to be Michael, who before he escaped had been an unwilling test subject in a secret government project designed to create an astronaut able to survive in a variety of harsh environments. By now, though, he was no longer recognizable as a human being. The reckless, multiple manipulations of his DNA by the government scientists had accelerated his mutation wildly out of control, turning him into a sick, ravening beast. Tragically, when Mutant X caught up with him he was too far gone, too far regressed and too ill for them to help. In the end, Shalimar had been forced to shoot him. Though with his last breath he thanked her for releasing him from his nightmare existence, Michael and what he had become – what she might have become and might yet come to be -- still haunted her dreams.

No, that was only partly true. The real fear came when she recalled the incredible euphoria, the almost orgasmic feeling that filled her when she'd driven her hand into living flesh and had felt the hot blood spurting through her fingers. It was that lust that she was most afraid of, that reversion back to the primeval; the loss of mind and soul into an addiction for blood. If she ever succumbed to it …!

But it was only that one time, she told herself. She had struck only under the most extreme provocation – to save Brennan. It wasn't bloodlust; she was protecting her pack, her family. She would do so again under the same circumstances. It wasn't the same thing at all. She had the beast firmly under control.

Didn't she?

Brennan reeled back from a bruising kick to the side of his chest. The guard he was battling was good, very good, and though both were getting in telling strikes, neither could gain a lasting advantage against the other. He ducked in and tattooed a fast right-left-right combination to the other's ribs, the seams of his lab coat erupting under the strain. The burly man staggered back, one arm folding in reflexive protection against his body, but he was far from done. Brennan swore under his breath. This was taking too much time. The part of his mind that kept tabs on such things recognized that some of the guards they had taken out before they rescued Jaryl were staggering to their feet to rejoin the fray. Jaryl herself was grappling with a teleporter, and Shalimar was working her way with ferocious grace through the remnants of the security force, but he knew that others were probably on their way. He needed to do something to end this fast, but his opponent was pressing him too hard to allow him the second or two he needed to generate an electrical charge.

Wait a second. Jaryl. Seeing her made him think of Matt and the earlier skirmish behind the coffee shop. The bodyguard he fought had displayed a fighting style unique to anything he had seen, yet it was simplistic in design, easy to break down into component parts if one knew how, which Brennan did. It had intrigued him enough to make him consider adding a couple of those moves to his repertoire. Well, there was no time like the present.

Brennan feinted high, then twisted left and brought his heel around to connect with the back of his opponent's right thigh just above the knee. It was an unorthodox kick and he felt awkward launching it without any actual practice, but it caught the man flat-footed. He lurched forward with a moan of pain, and in that unguarded instant fell prey to a monster left that jarred Brennan's arm clear to the shoulder. To the floor the blue-shirt crashed, down and out.

Shalimar felt rather than saw a shadow looming behind, and she whirled to deal with the threat. Her slashing arm, however, met only the billowing folds of her recently abandoned lab coat. Decoy! She flung it away, but in that nanosecond of clearing she left herself open. Icy hands seized her shoulders. A torrent of incredible cold like a blast of liquid nitrogen flooded through her body. Desperately she tried to wrench free, but the frigid waves were hardening her muscles to so much lead, deadening her reflexes. Her turn was aborted half way.

It was the remaining mutant, the woman with the spiky green hair. Shalimar could almost feel her heart slowing, the blood congealing in her veins. She tried to struggle, to break free, but the searing cold numbed her brain and penetrated her bones, making them feel brittle. Her body stiffened, becoming rigid in mid-motion. Her breath came in frosty gasps. Ice crystals formed in her hair and clothes. Her knees gave way under her. She was dying, and she knew it. In a handful of seconds she would literally freeze to death.

Brennan spun at the sound of a choking gasp that he knew came from Shalimar, and saw that she was in serious trouble. The woman in the Gothic makeup had her hands digging in the feral's shoulders, forcing her nearly to the floor, and Shal looked helpless to resist. Before he could even think of going to her aid two men smashed into him from his blind side in a bull's rush. He grunted in pain at the impact as he was slammed to the floor, the three men crashing down together in a tangle of arms and legs. One of his attackers flung himself on the downed elemental, trying to pin him while he cocked his fist.

Brennan saw it coming and managed to twist his head enough that the blow was a glancing one, but still enough to rattle his teeth. He brought his knee up sharply, ramming it into the man's kidney, stunning him enough that Brennan was able to throw a short but solid left hook, knocking the guard off him.

The other guard, though, had taken advantage of his partner's shielding body. Even as Brennan threw his punch he was already swinging his club victoriously down in what would surely be the finishing stroke. It didn't matter that his victim was reacting with surprising speed, twisting his open hand back toward the descending club. The angle was all wrong to block the blow, and even if he did manage to deflect it the electricity would still get him. His grin didn't fade when Brennan caught the crackling club head in his bare hand, stopping the blow with a grip of steel. The guard smirked. Like that would save him. It was over, and he had won. No matter where he took the hit there was enough voltage in the weapon to put down a horse. Electricity sizzled as the weapon contacts pumped its deadly charge into his enemy's skin, bathing both club and hand in white-blue sparks.

Triumph turned to incredulity an instant later when he realized that not only was his erstwhile victim still holding onto the club, he actually appeared to be absorbing the charge. Tiny bolts of lightning flashed in the man's pupils, and remarkably he seemed to be getting stronger. Dumbfounded, the guard released his grip on the now-drained club, at a loss as to what to do next. He wasn't in suspense for long. Something grabbed his arm, and every nerve ending in his body seemed to catch fire. He knew nothing more.

The only flaw in Brennan's plan was that the zapped man fell forward across his left arm and chest, pinning him pretty effectively. Before he could haul him off the side of his head abruptly exploded in pain. Through a shower of multicolored spots Brennan saw a booted foot drawing back to kick him again.

The blow never landed. Blearily Brennan tried to push through the fog in his brain to understand why. He thought he heard the unique crackle of an electrical discharge, maybe more than one, but he knew that couldn't be right. He hadn't felt a charge leave his hand, and anyway that kick to the head left him momentarily too addled to concentrate sufficiently to generate one. Then the fog began to part, and he could see the man who had been about to kick him spasm violently and collapse senseless to the floor. That was weird. At first he thought that he had unconsciously caused it after all in some instinctive, last-ditch survival reflex. Then his head cleared a little more and he could see one of the charged clubs hovering in mid-air like some giant black dragonfly right where his attacker had been. Another one floated near Shalimar's half-collapsed form, standing guard over the still twitching Gothic ice princess in the green leather miniskirt. Realization hit. Telekinesis! Matt was covering them, just as he promised.

Silence fell.

Panting a little from the exertion, Brennan pushed the unconscious man off him and rolled to his knees. He shook his head, grimacing at the aches now beginning to report in. Oh man – there was certainly going to be ice in his plans tonight – ice and ibuprofen and maybe a stiff double Scotch. Or two. He glanced over at Shalimar and saw that she also had made it to her hands and knees. The floor around her was littered with unconscious bodies.

Jesse's worried voice came over the comlink.

"Are you guys all right?"

Shalimar's head lifted slowly. Her rueful sideways glance at Brennan through a tangle of blond hair held a world of meaning, a communication between them which needed no words. _We did it again,_ her look seemed to say, acknowledging both their penchant for getting themselves into this kind of trouble and the fact that, although a bit worse for wear and albeit with some help, they were once again victorious. Her gaze took in his split lip, the beginning of a lovely purple and yellow lump on the point of his jaw, and the careful, stilted movement which suggested a cracked rib as he climbed to his feet. He could see that she was shivering violently, her body whitened in places by a thin glaze of hoarfrost. He canted his head sheepishly. _Yeah, but look at the other guys, _his return look replied. She winked at him, her mouth curved wryly. Then she took a breath to help steady her trembling and lifted her ring to her mouth to respond to Jesse.

"We'll live."

Watching them on the monitor, Jesse heaved a sign of relief as the empath, having finally caught up with her teleporting adversary, went over and knelt at Shalimar's side, slipping her arm around the feral's back. Whatever injuries they sustained, Jaryl would take care of them. That was good for its own sake, but also because they still had a long way to go, and would need both Shalimar and Brennan in peak fighting trim if they were all going to make it out of Naxcon in one piece. He saw her go next to Brennan and lightly touch his face. A wave of remembered warmth flowed over him as he recalled being the recipient of a similar touch, but this time he didn't let his memories distract him. He flicked through the camera screens to check on the other bad guys. The team that had gone down the back stairs were making their way stealthily toward Harrison's lab. One of them had a walkie-talkie out, and appeared to be communicating with a group on the top floor. Though he couldn't pull audio from this system, Jesse had a pretty good hunch what their plans were.

"Guys, you've got more company on the way!" he shouted, "One team is heading across the floor to Harrison's lab; another is going to try to come down the southwest stairs and catch you between them. You need to beat them to it. Get out of there _now_!"

They needed no further urging. Brennan stuck his head out the doorway for a quick look, then waved the ladies on in front of him. They darted toward the corner stairs, the two airborne clubs following them like a pair of faithful hounds. Shalimar flung open the door, gestured for Jaryl to precede her, and nodded toward them.

"Your husband is a handy guy to have around."

Jaryl grinned.

"Yeah, I guess I'll keep him a while longer." She flicked a glance over her shoulder as they went through the opening at the oncoming Brennan.

"They do have their uses, don't they?" she said with a knowing little woman-to-woman smile.

Before Shalimar could even consider what prompted that comment, they heard a shout and some sort of green pseudo-energy nearly gave Brennan a shave before splattering against the door. A half dozen men in street clothes were hurtling down the corridor straight for them. Shalimar moved to come back through, but Brennan pushed her on.

"Go!" he urged.

She started to object that she wasn't about to leave him by himself when she saw the two clubs wheel in midair and fling themselves at their pursuers like a pair of angry, spitting hornets. Using the door for cover from a volley of energy fire, Brennan waited until they were upon the group before loosing a bolt of lighting. He hit both of them with one shot, causing them to explode in a blinding, spitting flare of light, halting the charging mutants amid cries of pain and dismay. Pausing briefly to generate a three-second weld of the door mechanism which he knew wouldn't hold for long, he then stripped off his ruined lab coat as he pounded up the stairs after the two women.

Trying to measure distances on two cameras at once as his teammates exited the lab, Jesse's blood turned to ice. They weren't going to make it. The group coming at them from the second floor was moving too fast; they were nearly there. Brennan, Shalimar and Jaryl were going to be trapped in the stairwell. Their only chance was if he could get to that landing and mass out, hopefully shielding them enough to allow them to escape to the first floor. He swiveled in his chair, his feet under him as he prepared to launch himself from the chair.

**No, stay. Look at the screen. Quickly.**

He turned back, thinking that something had developed, but nothing was different.

"What am I looking at!?" he snapped to the woman standing next to him.

Lexa gave him a startled look.

"I didn't say anything."

Jesse shot her a disbelieving look, but it didn't matter now anyway. It was too late. The bad guys had reached the door. The man in front, sporting an array of tattoos, a scraggly red beard and a Harley Davidson shirt, grabbed the handle and pulled it open, the others crowding close behind him. Below, Shalimar and Jaryl had just gotten through the basement door. Jesse felt despair yawning in the pit of his stomach. Damn! They were trapped! He should have gone to help them when he had the chance.

Suddenly the shoulders of Red Beard's shirt bunched, as if the wings of the Harley eagle on his back had drawn together to seize him in their feathered grip. In the next instant he was jerked off his feet and thrown into his fellows, knocking them sprawling like tenpins. The whole thing hadn't taken five seconds from start to finish. Unaware of the reprieve they'd just been given, the good guys vaulted up the stairs to the main floor.

It suddenly dawned on Jesse what had just happened. What he thought was Lexa speaking had actually been a telepathic communication from Matt. Now something in the back of his head was leading him to think that when Matt told him to turn back to the screen, it was because he needed to use the molecular's eyes to focus his telekinetic power to delay the gang on the second floor. No doubt he'd done the same thing with Jaryl to guide the two electro-clubs. He might even have done the same thing earlier when he used that machine cord to tie off the double doors; that would account for that odd, someone-looking-over-his-shoulder feeling. Was this notion, this strange sense of knowledge gained without any recognizable words spoken or experiencing any of the usual forms of external input, a facet of Matt's telepathy? Or was he just imagining the whole thing? Jesse didn't know.

Never mind, he told himself sternly. Focus, Jesse! Matt's stratagem had bought them some time, but not nearly enough to get them all out of Naxcon. Through the security cameras Jesse could see Red Beard and his friends getting to their feet. The group that had been stopped by the tied double doors had taken unwitting advantage of Matt's distraction to head for the similar set on the other side of the floor. The bunch Brennan dazzled had backtracked and was now coming up to the main floor via both the central stairs and the elevator. The obvious aim was to reclaim their prize, plus a bonus, by confronting Brennan, Shalimar and Jaryl from three different directions.

Of course, the bad guys didn't know that their quarry was not alone, and the element of surprise could be a tremendous, although short-lived, advantage. His thoughts racing, Jesse quickly formed a battle plan. If Matt could slow down the forces coming up from the basement but let the other group through, he and Lexa could set up an ambush once they crossed the center and entered their pair of the double doors. That would leave Brennan, Shalimar and Jaryl to handle the group now regrouping on the second floor. They were dealing with a lot of unknowns here in the form of the powers they would be facing, but tactically it was their best play.

He needed to convey this to Matt. If it had been one of the others he would have just used their ring comlink, but Matt didn't have one. Telepathy was the obvious answer, but Jesse's only practical experience with a psionic was with Emma. The few times there had been any mental communication between them it had been one way – her receiving what he was unconsciously sending, or her sending to him . Could a non-esper initiate real-time, conscious, two-way mental contact with a psionic? He had no idea. Then again, Matt had telepathically answered what he was thinking by giving him instructions to look at the camera screen. Could he be listening to his thoughts even now?

**Just your surface thoughts,** came the immediate reply. Jesse couldn't help starting a little at the unfamiliar, and unsettling, sensation of realizing that someone else was actually inside his head, but to his credit he didn't freak out. **Good idea, except Jaryl joins me. She's updating the others now.**

This whole exchange happened with the speed of thought. Jesse marveled that the group he and Lexa would tackle had only just gotten to the first floor northeast side doors. For instant communication this telepathy thing had their comlinks beat all hollow. So swift was the exchange that he estimated he had as much as 20 seconds with which to set up an ambush. He leaped from his chair, seizing Lexa's hand.

"Come on!" he urged. Before she could hardly blink he had phased them both and was pulling her through the server room wall at a run.

Dillon Carter, the greasy-haired man that Shalimar had laid out in her opening strike, pushed slowly up from the floor, drops of blood pooling beneath him from multiple lacerations to his lip and the inside of his mouth. He sat back on his heels, one hand going to the side of his face, as if by this action he could somehow ease the pain of two dislodged teeth and a busted jaw.

That bitch, that little bitch. He spit out another tooth and wiped his mouth on his sleeve, leaving a bloody smear. He never would have thought that a broad would have been able to do this to him. She had taken him by surprise with her speed, that was all. He hadn't had the chance to use his own power. But he would now. A lust for revenge swelled in his heart, filling his brain with a curtain of red. In all his years on the street no one, _no one_, ever did that to him and got away with it. He didn't care about the others; her tall partner or Target Alpha. That blond bitch was going to pay for this. He would take her apart, piece by bloody piece, would enjoy her screams and revel in her pain as his rage burned her to a cinder. He would gut her like a fish with a knife of fire, and have her golden mane hanging as a trophy from his belt.

He reached over to snatch a walkie-talkie from the shirt of the guard lying unconscious nearest to him. He listened carefully to the reports of the other teams. The intruders and the woman they freed were believed to be on the first floor, west wing, probably the south side. Two teams were even now maneuvering to trap them between their two forces, one from above, one from below. A third team had run into a snag at the southeast doors, leading to the suspicion that there may be more intruders than they originally thought. Carter climbed to his feet. It didn't matter how many of them there were. That little bitch was his. And he would kill anyone, friend or foe, who got in his way.

A few of his fellow graftees and some of the security guards were moving now, groaning in pain or staggering to their feet. A few went to check on those still unconscious or offer aid to the wounded. Carter ignored them all. Disdainfully tossing the radio onto its owner's stomach, he stepped purposefully over their recumbent bodies and exited the lab, his mind focused on just one thing. He didn't know who the intruders were, and he didn't care. They thought he was down, neutralized, done. They were about to learn differently.

The stairway door appeared to be locked, but a savage kick broke the weld with contemptuous ease. On the floor above he could hear the sounds of battle raging. As he climbed the stairs with an even tread which belied his building rage, his hands reddened with the generation of his power, quick little licks of hard fire leaking from his fingers.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Jesse stood just inside the door with his back pressed to the wall, his ear at the nearest jamb. Balanced sideways in his hands was a five pound bag of Quik-Dry he had scavenged on the fly from one of the emergency spill kits dotted around the work stations; standard issue in most labs as part of the facility's overall safety protocol. The bag was a little unwieldy, his awkward posture making its contents shift in his hands, spilling a bit because he'd torn it open from top to bottom to expose its granular contents. Lexa stood back behind one of the counters with a clear shot at the double doors, ready to fire. As ambushes went it wasn't a particularly sophisticated plan, but they hadn't had time to get fancy.

The floor plan given to them by Lexa's contact hadn't really given him a good picture of the setup, just identifying it as 'open chemistry labs'. Now he understood what that meant. Unlike the closed-in labs like Dr. Harrison's in the basement, there were no walls other than those used in the offices and cubicles lining the perimeter of the floor. The majority of the working space was comprised of double row after double row of long back-to-back countertops laid out perpendicular to the structure's spine. Each black-topped counter was fully equipped with sinks, first aid boxes, fire extinguishers, emergency eye wash and shower stations; scales, spectrometers, computers, printers, refrigerators, and a whole host of machines and specialty storage units he couldn't identify at a glance. The color scheme outside the countertops was an unrelenting panorama of beige and white, relieved only by colorfully marked disposal canisters identifying what could and could not be placed inside.

Surmounting the sturdy counters was a row of overhead cabinets, with more labeled cabinets and smaller drawers mounted underneath, although not reaching to the floor. Heavy-duty metal cabinets of various sizes and shapes were set vertically down the center, dividing the double rows into a loose, somewhat see-through right and left arrangement. From the little he could see beyond them, the other side of the floor was arranged in a similar fashion.

Used to the more orderly composition of Sanctuary's lab, Jesse frowned at the clutter of this place. Latex gloves, measuring tubes, safety glasses, assorted papers and other detritus were strewn about in a haphazard fashion. Bottles of chemicals in dark glass and stoppered vials in many different sizes, stacked bins, beakers, test tubes and a lot of other glassware stood abandoned on several counters. Evidently the workers here had simply dropped everything and left.

Lexa saw him stiffen and ease a few inches back from the edge of the door. He looked over at her and nodded. _Just don't hit __me_, he mouthed with a wink, a rakish little grin touching his lips. She rolled her eyes derisively in answer and vanished into stealth mode. According to the plan, she would reappear when Jesse threw the Quik-Dry and start blasting with her laser power. She could do so while still in stealth, but it was a drain to use two powers at once, and she might need the energy later on.

One of the heavy doors opened fractionally. An eye appeared in the opening, looking around. After a moment, apparently reassured by the silence and the apparently empty chamber, the door was pulled open further. A slender man with Asian features, wearing a worn black T-shirt adorned with what could have been some kind of sword-wielding warrior, motioned the four others behind him to silence as he led them through.

Before he had gone four paces a blinding cloud of something off-white and powdery was flung into their faces from the side. In the next instant a beam of scarlet lanced through his chest, killing him before he even knew he was hit. Lexa's second strike was a little off due to the target leaping aside; her bolt clipped his ribs, cauterizing the wound at the same time. The jerk of the impact knocked him out of his controlled dive; his head connecting with the side of a filing cabinet with stunning force. Two down.

Lexa's third target had disappeared with a blast of trailing wind. Before she could even process what happened she was knocked to the floor by a blurring figure which blitzed past her at incredible speed. The figure whirled, knocking over a counter stool, and came at her again, this time seizing her hair and slamming her face into the side of a refrigerator. Stunned, Lexa fell, her head ringing. She could barely make out the now triple form of the speed demon whirling around for another pass.

After throwing the Quik-Dry Jesse had massed out just in case. He launched a haymaker into the jaw of a bearded man wearing a biker's leather vest. Not completely out but thoroughly dazed by the augmented blow, he was an easy mark for Jesse's next move. Seizing him by both wrists, he went from massed to intangible, dragging the biker with him as he stepped back through the doors. As soon as the biker's wrists cleared, Jesse let go, using the door itself as a pretty effective pair of handcuffs. He phased back through to rejoin the fray.

Someone was waiting for him when he re-emerged.

Crouched down behind a long counter waiting for Shalimar's signal, Brennan brushed aside the power cord of a printer dangling annoyingly close to his ear. It swung back and he batted at it again, but then caught it as it returned. An interesting notion had just occurred to him. He traced the end of the cord, and found it was plugged into an electrical outlet mounted conveniently under the countertop's ledge. In fact, from what he could tell there was whole line of receptacles running the length of the under side of the ledge. He pulled the cord from the outlet, sensing the current running through it.

Although Jaryl's power had been helpful in rejuvenating both him and Shalimar, this fight was a long way from over and they were still heavily outnumbered. Survival could easily hinge upon how well he rationed his strength. Like any other physical activity, generating and expending electricity took a toll on his body's energy supply. He knew from the mutant database that his power ranking among elementals was pretty near the top of the chart; he was capable of generating enough electrical energy inside his body to power a small city in fact, but it wasn't like he could keep it up all day. He was also able to channel current from an outside source through his body if there was one available. Adam had once theorized that with his ongoing mutation he might one day have the ability to absorb current through his hands, although he had never gotten around to testing it.

Until today. Grabbing the head of that electro-club had been a desperate gamble. It had stung like holy hell, but even through the stinging he felt it working, felt his body absorbing the charge that he was later able to turn around to put down his attacker. It might be that he could do the same thing with the lesser current flowing through this electrical outlet. He touched the receptacle, feeling his way through the process since he had never done this before, sort of willing the energy to come to him. Satisfaction filled him when he felt his fingers tingle as the current began to flow into them. He did have to concentrate on keeping the flow rate steady but fairly light; not pull so much power all at once that it made the lights flicker, but this was pretty cool. And useful. He breathed deeply, feeling the energy streaming into his system, invigorating him – or perhaps recharging him would be a better description. Though he had been pacing himself; hadn't really expended that much electricity yet, from the way this thing was going all this extra juice just might come in handy. The beauty of it was that if he ran low again he should be able to repeat the process, which would significantly help their odds of getting out of here intact. Definitely cool.

Shalimar shifted slightly on her perch atop a tall, glass-fronted climate controlled storage unit near the stairwell door, a she-panther ready to spring onto her prey. She had chosen that spot right off, not only because dropping from above was her favorite method of attack, but it also enabled her to keep audible track of their expected visitors. Jaryl had simultaneously filled them in about the forces moving to surround them and Jesse's plan, and they had quickly divided to take up stations best suited to utilizing their powers for the initial strike. Now doing one last visual sweep from her vantage point she could see Brennan peeking up from behind the second row counter, watching her and waiting for her signal. He was ready, she knew, and fully charged; she could practically feel the hum of his power from here. Beyond him she noted for the first time a shadowed area about half way down. It looked like a little room, a storage area maybe, but built much more solidly than one would expect. It had a pair of heavy plexiglass sliding doors which were now propped open in some fashion, but the cabinets blocked her from seeing what was stored inside.

The distinctive sound of Lexa's laser bolts came to her ears. She turned her head toward them, not to hear better, but as a silent signal to Brennan in case he couldn't hear it that Jesse and Lexa were starting their show. Then her head snapped back as she heard the rumble of footsteps thundering down the stairs,and all of her attention immediately zeroed in on the door. She tensed, ready to pounce.

Her head still ringing, Lexa felt the telltale gust of rushing air approaching and swung around to meet it. She was just in time to see a sort of gray blur hurtling toward her before something slammed into her stomach, doubling her over, the blast of wind half spinning her as it blew past, making her clutch a counter ledge for support. She heard a laugh off to her right and straightened slowly to see a slender woman with very short, very fine jet black hair lounging against a file cabinet.

"Well, aren't you the beauty queen," she sneered at Lexa. She made a _tsking_ sound. "You're going to need some makeup on that eye before you show up at the embassy ball."

Lexa's hand went reflexively to her left eye and temple, which were still stinging from her impact with the refrigerator. She could feel a slight puffiness starting already, and with it a sort of incredulity. She was actually going to have a shiner. No one had ever done that to her before. Her temper, never really far below the surface, burst into instant flame. Calling on her laser power, she cocked her hand and fired.

The other mutant laughed again, dodging her bolt with ease. Lexa loosed a barrage of shots, tracking the speedball without success down the main aisle, although doing plenty of damage to cube walls and cabinets before losing sight of her among the rows. Then a gust of air blew the hair off the back of her neck.

"Too slow, Princess," and Lexa felt a white-hot flare of pain stab into her kidney. Another punch caught her in the short ribs, but though she couldn't get a good visual fix on the blurred figure darting around her she was able to anticipate the next blow with a forearm block. That contact gave her a more solid reference point; she lashed out with a foot, and with more luck than skill managed to connect solidly enough to knock her foe back against an office cube. That gave her enough of a respite to disappear into stealth mode. She stepped forward, but the speedy mutant was up and away before Lexa could close the distance.

It became a game of cat and mouse, with each woman seeking to lay claim to the role of the cat. The grafted mutant utilized her speed in short bursts, darting down aisles, into cubes and between counters, knowing that although invisible, her opponent was still solid and could be found by physical contact. Lexa held her fire, not wanting to give away her position until and unless she could work around to get a clear shot at her foe. She watched for the telltale signs of her passage, ducking next to a file cabinet or slipping up onto a counter whenever her speedy rival dashed by. She knew that there was no way she could catch up to the much faster woman, but she reasoned that sooner or later Speedy Gonzalez would have to stop, either to gain her bearings or to catch her breath. Lexa intended to be ready when she did.

They prowled the lab in eerie silence, the only noise caused by the rush of wind and the sound of the battle being waged in the front by their male counterparts, a battle both women ignored. This was a contest between them, and neither wanted to become distracted or give their location away by interfering with the men. They were like two hunting cats stalking each other through a metal and drywall jungle, circling, probing, their senses extended to their limits.

Lexa heard a sound sort of like grating plastic, and rounded a corner to find one of the emergency spill kit boxes hanging open and empty from its mooring on the wall, a handful of what looked like kitty litter scattered on the floor beneath it. Her stomach tightened. It looked like Speedy was going to try to use the Quik-Dry in the kit to find her, either by spreading it on the floor where it would reveal her footprints or betray her by the sound of it crunching under her feet; or by tossing it in the air and letting the litter reveal the outline of her body. Either way it was trouble. There were several of those kits around. Eventually Speedy would find her unless she did something fast.

'Eventually' came a lot sooner than Lexa expected. She barely got another three steps when a miniature tornado of whirling Quik-Dry barreled up the aisle right toward her. She flung up her hands to shield her eyes from the stinging grit. In the next instant the winds evaporated, and she felt the granular debris dropping over invisible form.

"There you are!"

Two hands slammed into Lexa's back, sending her crashing into the door of a storage unit. Shaken and knocked to her knees, she reappeared. Speedy shouted in triumph and charged. Lexa raised her hands and flung one of her dazzle-bursts full in the speedster's face, then dropped flat in her path. Blinded and cursing, the high-speed harpy tripped over her victim, tumbling several times until her momentum was stopped by the impact of her back against a support pillar. She didn't hit hard enough to do any real damage to herself, but though she regained her feet in the blink of an eye her prey had vanished again.

Lexa had had more than enough of this crap. It was time to end this once and for all. She had scrambled forward under the nearest counter and stayed there, knowing that her foe would expect her to put some distance between them. Now she heard the grating-plastic sound again, and the ripping of heavy paper. Apparently Speedy had just vandalized another emergency spill kit.

_Uh-uh, witch, you don't catch me the same way twice._ Lexa knew that the counter she was under would protect her from discovery by falling Quik-Dry, but she also needed a way to slow her down enough to be able to get her hands around the witch's scrawny neck. She looked around, and inspiration struck. Across the aisle under a sink was a wheeled office step stool.

Speedy was still dashing around throwing Quik-Dry, and from the amount she was spraying would soon have to grab another bag. As soon as she passed Lexa rolled out from beneath her counter and crawled over to the step stool. She grasped it, making it disappear as well. Next she lifted it up and rolled onto her belly, carefully scrunching as much of her body as she could under the sink and its attached counter.

Judging by the richness of the little snatches of cursing she was able to catch as her opponent hurtled by, Speedy was starting to get frustrated. Good. Lexa set the stool down delicately in the aisle on its side as it would make a bigger stumbling block that way, her left hand closed around one of the casters to maintain the stealth shield. Now all she had to do was lure Speedy over this way.

Ah – that should do it. In the cube across the main aisle and to the right was a small plastic trash can standing flush against the partition. If she could tag it without her laser being seen, the noise might be enough to bring Speedy running. She listened, straining her ears, trying to locate the other mutant.

_Moron!_ The cursing was increasing in strength, and gave away her quarry's location as being on Lexa's left. Excellent. She concentrated, trying to will the power gathering in the fingers of her right hand to a level much lower than her customary intensity. Brennan's words from that morning came to her mind; _sometimes you want to disable instead of destroy_. If she shot too hard the trash can would be blasted back into the cube. She needed a light bounce instead to give the impression that she'd accidentally brushed against it. Anything stronger and Speedy might suspect a setup.

She lined up the shot, taking careful aim. Her focus wavered; her body ached in several places, and it was hard to keep herself and the stool invisible and to simultaneously exert such control over her laser power. She had never tried anything like this before. Her teeth clenched, she clamped down hard with an iron will, ruthlessly shoving aside any doubts, and sharpened her concentration. She had to do this. She _would_ do this. One finger extended. She fired.

Hit on the bottom corner, the little trash can leapt a few inches, bouncing against the wooden side cap of the cube opening before falling on its side into the aisle, a perfect shot. _Not bad_, she thought to herself, with a grudging nod of respect to Brennan and his crazy idea, although she would never tell him that. His head was swelled enough already. To her left Lexa could hear the cursing stop. A rising wind like an approaching gust front swept over her. She braced herself.

An instant later the step stool was torn roughly from her hand and sent clattering across the tile floor, combined with the multiple thuds of something heavy making similar repeated impacts. Lexa scrambled to her feet and dashed forward. The speed demon had crashed into a photocopier at the end of the row, and was now lying in front of it badly stunned.

Lexa strode forward with a deliberate tread and finality of expression that would have done Clint Eastwood proud. By her side her right hand lit, pulsing in rhythm with every stride. She was going to enjoy this. This witch was about to get a customized laser facial the likes of which she'd never seen before. There was an old adage that revenge was a dish best served cold. When it came to vengeance, Lexa was a master chef.

The slender woman shook her head, trying to clear the stars from her vision. Searing pain flared from her right ankle, and she knew that it was broken. Then she looked up and saw death walking toward her in the incongruous form of the beauty queen with the budding black eye. There was no way she could escape. She could already feel herself trembling. Fear rose up, seizing her throat in a steel fist so she couldn't even scream, robbing her of breath so she couldn't even beg. She raised a shaking hand in a silent, terrified plea. Death stopped, standing over her, staring down with an implacable mien. Glowing fingers lifted slowly.

The quaking grew worse. In seconds her whole body was shuddering. And more. Fire erupted in her belly though Death hadn't made another move, racing through her chest, bursting into her brain. She writhed on the floor in throes of agony, screaming and screaming without any sound, the flames rising higher, consuming her, and then …

The glow in Lexa's hand faded and went out. She knelt beside the smoking body of her erstwhile foe and pressed her fingers to the side of her throat. Nothing. Slowly Lexa rose to her feet. She would have liked to kill Speedy herself, but when it came right down to it, burning out her grafted mutated genes like that had been a much more painful way to die than what Lexa would have inflicted. Whatever. The outcome was still the same. Squaring her shoulders, her face still hidden inside the granite mask she wore whenever she killed, Lexa went to find Jesse.

Jesse solidified before the thickset man who stood waiting for him. There was no mistaking Malcolm Denton. Even if he hadn't seen the mug shot his database had pulled up, the coiled red snake tattoo poking from beneath his shirt sleeve and the way his right hand was bandaged with a thick dressing around the thumb area would have given him away.

He hadn't realized it until now, but a part of him had been hoping he would have the opportunity to tangle with Denton. Some of it was ego, of course; proving who had the greater mastery of the powers they seemed to share. Mostly, though, Jesse wanted to exact a little revenge on Jaryl's behalf. It would be a small down payment on the huge debt he owed her for saving his life two years ago. This sense of indebtedness was what had made him so vehemently support Brennan as soon as he found out that Matt's kidnapped wife was an empath. Somehow deep in his gut he had known it was her.

However, Jesse wasn't Brennan, to go charging in on a wave of testosterone. He was much more analytical by nature. The fact that Denton had a good thirty pounds on him, a couple of inches in height, and maybe an inch or two in reach was something to take into account, but Jesse wasn't overly worried. Denton had the build and manner of a typical street thug. He was beginning to paunch in the middle, and his nose had evidently been broken more than once. That bite to the hand had to be paining him, but once the adrenaline started pumping it would be forgotten, so he couldn't expect any weakness from that quarter. Denton probably smoked, too – not a good thing for overall health, but particularly counterproductive to good breath control.

Overall, Jesse didn't expect to have any real problem taking Denton. He was confident in his own fighting skills, but even more confident in his mutant abilities. Denton could only have had his powers for a few months. Jesse had possessed his for most of his life. He knew their strengths and weaknesses intimately. It was time for Molecular 101 – Massing and Phasing, Professor Jesse Kilmartin, Instructor, and he was really looking forward to teaching the course. He dropped into a fighting stance, letting Denton make the first move.

It wasn't long in coming. Denton massed and strode forward cocking his arm for a punch. Jesse swayed easily back from the first swing, holding his ground. He dodged the second swing as well, but did not counterattack – at least, not yet. He was not stupid enough to do so while Denton was massed any more than he would punch a brick wall. Even if he was massed as well the odds were high that his blow wouldn't have nearly the effect that he would need it to have. Instead, he remained in his normal state and stayed on his bicycle, as the boxing term went; gliding, circling, making Denton come to him.

_Lesson One – Effective use of these powers requires superior breath control._ For complicated biological reasons one couldn't breathe while in either of the two altered forms; therefore, you had to take a deep breath first and hold it for as long as you could while either something passed through your body or bullets bounced off you. Activity such walking through things or fighting while massed used air faster than standing still. Jesse's strategy was to keep Denton moving and wait for the telltale ripple in his physiology that would signal the imminent reversion to regular form.

He phased in time to let the third blow pass right through him and kept going, throwing Denton off balance, then solidified behind him and gave Denton an energetic push to the back, sending him smashing into a black topped counter, scattering glassware broadcast as he flailed his arms trying to right himself. The tattooed man whipped around with an angry roar, but Jesse, knowing that he couldn't stay massed and bellow at the same time, was already moving in, meeting that reversion to normal with a perfectly timed lightning-fast kick in the teeth and a punishing right to the diaphragm.

Denton doubled over, wheezing hard. Harder than he should have, in fact. Jesse was sure that the faux mutant was exaggerating the blow's effect to draw him in. He held off, circling warily. Realizing his ploy had failed, Denton dropped the act and charged low. Jesse massed and moved to meet him. Denton was lunging too fast to stop, so he did the next best thing. He phased, passing right through Jesse's body and whirled to use the same move that Jesse had used on him. Mutant X's resident molecular had other plans. Anticipating his opponent's strategy, Jesse kept going toward his real objective – the fire extinguisher on the wall behind where Denton had been standing.

_Lesson Two – Massing and phasing are no proof against temperature. _ Jesse ripped the device free of its brackets and spun around. Fortunately it was very similar to the type they used at Sanctuary so he was familiar with its operation. Denton lashed out with a foot, which Jesse blocked with the canister, then pointed the nozzle at Denton and blasted him full in the face. The CO2 frosted his body with patches of white, the intense cold and clouds of vapor momentarily stunning him, sending him reeling back. Jesse dropped the extinguisher and plunged into the mist after him, delivering a fierce right-left-right combination to the body. He even managed a credible version of the two-kick Brennan had been trying to teach him for the past couple of weeks, though he felt a twinge in his lower back with the second strike. Denton staggered back against a table. His hand brushed against a brown glass bottle, which he grabbed and threw at his more nimble attacker. Kilmartin ducked; it smashed into a lateral cabinet behind him and filled the air with a sharp, acrid odor. Dodging the missile, however, gave Denton time to push off the table and catch Jesse with a solid right cross to the jaw.

Glass crunching under his feet, Jesse spun with the blow, lessening its impact. Denton tried to ram a knee into his belly, but a timely block deflected it and enabled Jesse to return the favor with a hard-driven elbow. Denton swung again, but the momentum threw him off balance and the punch whistled harmlessly past Jesse's ear. The molecular sidestepped and delivered a crisp left hook to the other's abused proboscis. He felt something give beneath his fist and grinned in satisfaction, pretty sure that he'd just added to the total number of broken noses Denton sustained in his life.

_Lesson Three – Think outside the box. _There were more uses to these abilities than simply being able to mass or phase one's entire body. Jesse could limit the effect to portions of his body, and could also extend it to other people or objects that he was in direct physical contact with. Whether Denton could do so as well was an unanswered question, but since he hadn't demonstrated the talent yet, Jesse thought it likely that either he couldn't or wasn't practiced enough in the technique to utilize it.

His nose dripping blood, Denton snatched one of the counter stools and advanced with it flipped sideways, thinking to protect himself and trap Jesse between counters at the same time. Jesse phased from the waist down and stepped right through a sink. At the same time he grasped the leg of the stool with his left hand and phased that as well, making it fall through Malcolm's hands. He released it as soon as it was clear. It resolidified immediately and dropped onto Denton's feet, making him trip over it as sudden lack of weight in his hands and the arrested movement of his feet made him lurch forward. Down he crashed onto his hands and knees. Jesse darted out of the sink in front of Denton, took a fraction of a second to set himself and massed out.

_This one's for Jaryl_, he thought to himself, and whipped a roundhouse kick into Denton's chin that launched him back over the stool and into dreamland. Jesse reverted to normal and pushed a sheaf of wheat-colored hair out of his eyes.

"Class dismissed," he panted triumphantly, and turned to check on Lexa.

Brennan flung himself behind a counter as a volley of what looked tiny black beads sailed through the spot he just vacated. Their ambush had failed from the get-go. One of the attackers was a feral, a black man with a head full of dreadlocks. He had evidently sensed Shalimar's presence because he had come bursting through the door and had jumped straight at her. Shalimar sprang to meet him; they collided in mid-air and tumbled hard to the floor. The male struck first, ramming a knee into Shalimar's stomach, expelling the breath from her lungs with a pronounced _oof!_ He seized her and slammed her onto the first counter, mashing her into a bin full of glassware and beakers. Many of them shattered with the impact, becoming a pile of tiny daggers. Ignoring the shards digging into her scalp and back, she rolled up on her shoulders and delivered a powerful kick to his chin. The other feral staggered back a step, but Shalimar kept moving, pivoting up on her elbow, tipping the bin over and showering her back with broken glass. Using the counter for leverage, she lashed out with a two-blow scissors kick, sending him crashing through the window of the controlled-climate storage unit.

Brennan had managed to nail one of the manufactured mutants as he came through the door. He thought he might have disabled another when a bolt of his lightning smashed a large brown bottle, sending glass and its contents cascading over an olive-skinned woman with a long black ponytail. He had no idea what was in the bottle, but judging from her scream it was something nasty. He hoped it was.

He popped up for a snap shot that just missed his intended target and destroyed a printer instead, then ducked down and low-crawled to the next row of counters. He would have preferred slugging it out physically with the two remaining attackers, as forcing them to come in close would have given him an advantage in the limited floor space. They, however, had kept their attacks long range. The black beads appeared to be some kind of acid, judging by the melted splash marks on the counter they hit in the first strike and the pair of pea-sized holes on the side of one shoe where a couple of droplets had fallen. The other created singular, tennis-ball-sized globes of something purple with his hands and fired them at an incredible velocity. He had no idea if they did anything besides having one hell of an impact, and he'd just as soon not find out the hard way. He risked a quick look around, assessing the situation.

Shalimar was still dealing with her feral counterpart, and though bleeding in a dozen places from glass cuts she was beginning to get the upper hand. She ducked a swing and seized a handful of dreadlocks. With animal strength she slammed the owner's head into a countertop, then cartwheeled over his back to land a vicious punch to the kidney. Her booted foot slammed into his knee from the side, bringing a loud pop and a scream of agony. A final snap kick to the head, and it was over.

It was almost over for her as well. In the second she took to make sure her fallen foe was really out, the one mutant fired his black beads at her. Only her preternaturally fast reflexes saved her. She dived back under a counter, then rolled out the other side and across the aisle to the next one. Ponytail popped up, holding a hand to one side of her face, and with a snarl joined in firing pulses of some kind of blue energy. Between the two of them they had her pinned down until Brennan was able to tag Ponytail with a blast. He threw himself flat as a purple ball hurtled past, blowing a hole through the cabinets just above him, then scrambled to cover in the doorway of the small room in the center. He saw Acid Man take aim at Shalimar as she dodged around the next corner, trying to work her way toward him. He didn't see the stairway door open again to admit Dillon Carter, whose evil eyes at once fastened on Brennan standing exposed in the doorway. Shalimar, however, did. She saw Carter raise his hands. Something red-orange appeared to be forming at his fingertips.

"Brennan, look out!" she screamed, even as his shot caught Acid Man squarely in the chest. Reflexively Brennan started to turn his head, and just caught a glimpse of something flying toward him, like a barrage of fiery arrowheads. Shalimar heard him cry out; saw him duck and spin as he was hit, and her heart sprang into her throat when he dropped from sight in the entranceway.

Leaping, dodging and rolling, it seemed to take an eternity to get to where she had last seen him. When she finally dived inside he was crouched back inside the doorway against the concrete wall, clutching at a spot on the left side of his back, his face contorted in pain.

"Brennan!"

That he was hurt was immediately apparent, but at least he was conscious and moving. She flew to his side. One of the energy daggers had skinned past his outstretched arm and charred a furrow through shirt and flesh laterally across his shoulder blade. The others apparently impacted against the concrete wall, smoldering a bit now but doing no further damage to the cement. He bit back an oath as she peeled his fingers out of the way in an attempt to assess the wound.

"I'm fine," he said through gritted teeth.

She ignored him. He would have said the same thing if his arm had been shorn off and was now lying on the floor. So would she, actually. She probed the angry red and black patch gently.

"Third degree burn," she said, "He's a fire elemental." She started to pull the edges of the shirt away from the wound to get a better look. It looked nasty and he would wear the scar forever, but thankfully it didn't appear to be very deep. He flinched from her touch.

"It's just a graze." He started to rise, but she gripped his shoulder and held him down.

"Just hold still a minute and let me see."

He shook his head, brushing her hand aside and straightening against the wall.

"No time," he hissed, "We've got to get out of here."

He jerked his chin toward the other side of the room at something she hadn't seen when she first went in. Standing in racks against the far wall about ten feet away were a half dozen large green tanks bearing bright red and yellow stickers. The words 'Extremely Flammable' and 'Dangerous' leaped out in bold black letters. Looking around, Shalimar could see that unlike the rest of this lab, this room was built of concrete, probably steel reinforced to contain the blast in case of an accident. She recognized the implications at once. Her eyes grew huge.

"No kidding," she whispered.

He didn't really need it but she helped him to his feet anyway, and they edged up to the heavy plexiglass doorway. Brennan did a quick out-and-in glance to where Carter had been a moment ago. He wasn't there, and the sudden movement didn't draw any fire. Feeling a sick certainty of doom in the pit of his stomach, Brennan eased an eye around the corner to the right.

Carter had taken advantage of their distraction to circle around the lab to a place of cover near where Shalimar had been only a moment before. The plan had formed in his mind as soon as the bitch joined her partner. From that angle he had a clear shot at two of the tanks standing inside the doorway; hitting them would take out the rest, not to mention the two inside the tank storage room. It wouldn't be nearly as satisfying as the revenge he would have wanted, but they would still be dead, and he could live with that. All he had to do was wait for one of them to poke a head out and see him. He wanted to make sure they knew what was about to happen. The other mutant approached, one hand tinged with purple light, but Carter waved him off. This was his kill.

Brennan spotted the fire elemental immediately and realized that there was no way he could outdraw the other man. Carter already had his hand extended, a handful of fire arrows ready to launch. Carter saw Brennan at the same time; saw the horrible understanding in the big man's eyes. His broken mouth twisted into a sadistic grin.

"Gotcha!"

Brennan had already spun back around and seized Shalimar as Carter fired, flinging her petite form with all his strength toward the back of the room.

"Get down!" he yelled.

The tanks exploded with a deafening roar and a blaze of blinding light.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Stephen Thornton brought his motorized chair to a stop inside the cavernous, garage-type building that was the main staging area for this particular Dominion facility. The whole place was abuzz with activity. Everywhere he looked faceless figures in augmented charcoal gray body suits were performing weapons checks, loading the four discreetly armored black SUVs that stood lined up at the heavy metal overhead door, or performing other last-minute tasks. Today they were field testing a new weapon in their arsenal, one specifically designed for missions such as this. Whether it was worth the cost of development remained to be seen.

Conventional wisdom in subduing mutants had to date been focused on weaponry such as electrically-charged clubs and sub-dermal governors. These methods were fairly effective but far from perfect, as evidenced in numerous skirmishes between Genomex and Mutant X. The new energy-absorbing suits the operatives were wearing were the next step in the evolution of mutant detention systems, touted as a sort of Kevlar developed specifically for engaging mutants with energy-based powers. The product of years of research and testing by Dominion scientists, they represented a huge and very expensive breakthrough in the cutting-edge field of nanotechnology. The suits were in essence made up thousands of tiny nanocells woven into the fabric in overlapping layers. They protected the wearer from harm by absorbing and storing a number of different types of energy, much as solar cells absorbed solar energy. This gave the wearer an important edge in dealing with such opponents, but the suits did have some weaknesses. The nanocells could absorb only a finite amount of energy, which meant that they could be overloaded. Further, they could not absorb the kinetic energy of a punch or kick, and they decreased the wearer's agility by approximately ten percent.

Thornton watched them in their preparations with a sense of foreboding spreading through his gut. These were highly trained professional operatives, among the best assault forces the Dominion had to offer. They had to be. This mission was vital. Its success would save them years, perhaps decades of research, and would go a long way toward helping the Dominion achieve its ultimate goals. Failure was not an option. To that end, the mission had been carefully planned, incorporating intricate detail about the layout of the facility, the very latest intelligence regarding the grafted abilities they would be facing from Naxcon's security forces, and detailed information about their ultimate objective. Theoretically they should be able to accomplish their objective - strike quickly, decisively, and be gone with their prize - with relative ease. Unfortunately, if his analysis was correct the mission was already compromised.

His orders had been twofold; to delay Mutant X in order for the assault team to attack Naxcon and spirit away Target Alpha before rescue could arrive; and to find out all he could about the woman's husband. He had failed on both counts.

First, he had been trying for the last half hour to contact Lexa Pierce to give Mutant X the skillfully crafted intelligence intended to lead them down a false trail, but there had been no answer either from Sanctuary or from Lexa's cell phone. Thornton was certain that it meant the team was already at Naxcon, although as yet he had no confirmation of that. Why hadn't they waited? Probably the woman's husband was behind the premature move. They might even have already rescued Target Alpha by now, although Naxcon boasted a formidable security force. The latest information was that Damien Acosta had even sent two extra teams of his DNA grafted mutants to augment the regular security. Still, Mutant X was a powerful, experienced team with the extra advantages of surprise, stealth, and the temporary addition of a strong and highly motivated telekinetic. It would be a serious mistake to underestimate their capabilities or resourcefulness. In any case, it was plain that contingency plans would have to be formed immediately to deal with this disturbing development.

Even more troubling were his findings about the telekinetic, Matthew Star. Thornton hadn't been able to find out a single thing about the man. He wasn't in the mutant database that Adam Kane created which the Dominion had covertly cloned to their system. Neither was his wife, for that matter. He wasn't listed in any government or law enforcement database anywhere in the world. It was as if he didn't exist, which led to one of two conclusions: either the name was fake, or his resources were such that he had been able to totally expunge any trace of his identity from official records. He was an unknown, a wild card, which made him potentially very dangerous. Thornton's people were currently researching unofficial records, including conducting an extensive search of the area where the kidnapping occurred, under the theory that he either lived or was staying somewhere nearby. Sooner or later something had to turn up. The limousines, the cadre of bodyguards and the weaponry they carried shouldn't be that easy to hide.

But that was for later. Right now it was the mission that was paramount, a mission whose strategy now had to be altered. He looked out across the staging area. A sharply tailored white business suit stood out among the sea of gray. Upon the request of the Council Master, Dominique was personally supervising the final preparations of the assault team being sent to retrieve Target Alpha. Originally the team wasn't supposed to leave for another hour, but upon receiving word of a mass evacuation of all but Security personnel from Naxcon the timetable had been accelerated. The assumption was that Acosta recognized that this kidnapping would attract the attention of The Dominion, and that he was taking action accordingly to secure his prize. The assault force would be leaving momentarily. Thornton feared they were already too late.

Dominique caught sight of him across the staging bay and frowned. She had a final word with the mission leader and the two of them started walking briskly toward Thornton. The crisp clip of her French heels signaled her vexation as they echoed across the cement floor.

"Stephen, what are you doing here?" she asked sharply, "I thought you were busy seeing that Mutant X was diverted from our operation."

Thornton inclined his head, acknowledging her annoyance. It was about to get worse.

"We have a problem," he rumbled, "I've been unable to contact Ms. Pierce for the last half hour."

Dominique's eyes narrowed sharply.

"You think Mutant X has moved prematurely?"

A soft buzz interrupted before he could reply. He took a customized Blackberry from his pocket and studied the screen.

"I'm sure of it," he said, "We now have confirmation that security forces at Naxcon are engaging a small group of hostiles with enhanced abilities. It can only be Mutant X."

"You were supposed to delay them!"

Thornton shrugged; it was moot at this point. "Evidently they had other ideas."

Dominique whirled to her mission leader.

"Commander, get your squad on the road _now_! Do whatever you must to secure Target Alpha, and take her immediately to the Palinor facility."

"If you encounter Mutant X, subdue but do not harm them unnecessarily," Thornton interjected quickly, "Incarcerate only if you have to take the woman from them, or if they know you are taking her." Dominique impaled him with a look like a flung dagger but did not countermand. The squad leader nodded and hurried off, urging his people into the waiting vehicles. Multiple weapons clicked into readiness; feet pounded as a score of trained operatives leaped inside the SUVs. Engines roared to life, and they peeled out of the bay in single file. The two Council members watched until they were out of sight. They started toward the inner double door. She glanced sideways at him, regarding him with a measured look.

"I suppose you did that to protect Ms. Pierce," she said.

"I did that to protect Dominion assets and to keep our options open."

"Of course. Options." Dominique scrutinized him thoughtfully. "You know, you seem to have taken an almost proprietary interest in Ms. Pierce since you brought her into the organization."

Thornton stopped his chair abruptly, forcing her to turn back toward him.

"The mission has been compromised," he rumbled in his deep, bear-like voice, "Whether it is still viable is an open question. There are outcomes now in play which could pose a threat to Dominion interests. It would be prudent to have strategies in place to deal with those contingencies."

"Such as?"

Thornton started forward again, Dominique falling in by his side.

"It's possible, although unlikely, that Mutant X has not yet rescued Target Alpha," he said, "If they haven't, the mission remains viable. We can take the woman and leave."

"And if Mutant X already has her?"

"Then the situation becomes more complicated," Thornton admitted, "But still workable. Ms. Pierce has never seen the new energy-absorbing suits, so she won't be able to identify our men as a Dominion force. Since the counterattack is at the Naxcon facility, it shouldn't be hard to convince them that Damien Acosta was the one who spirited her away. This will divert their considerable threat liability toward Acosta should they insist on going after her, and we will retain their loyalty by pretending to help in the search for her."

This time it was Dominique who stopped. She looked down at her crippled colleague with grudging respect.

"Weakening Acosta even more than they are undoubtedly doing right now. That's an interesting analysis, Stephen," she said slowly, "We can even send a second force as backup to 'chase off' the first – unfortunately too late to save the woman, of course. But again, what if Mutant X already has her, and they identify our assault squad as Dominion operatives?"

"Then 'complicated' becomes a problem," Thornton said, "While Ms. Pierce would obey an order to stand down, it is highly unlikely at this point that the rest of the team would be so compliant. Her husband certainly wouldn't."

"That brings us back to taking Mutant X into custody right away," Dominique said. Thornton shook his head, making his long, graying mane sway.

"Doing that would unnecessarily remove any future value they would have to us as agents," he retorted, "We shouldn't eliminate such a valuable asset unless we have to." He glowered at her. "There is also the husband and his organization to consider. It is apparently powerful, the extent of its resources unknown. Star's continued interference, directly or indirectly, and the subsequent impact on Dominion interests cannot be discounted. If we can divert him as we divert Mutant X, we can subsequently use them both to our advantage."

She started slowly forward once more, lost in thought. The husband was indeed a variable that they hadn't factored into their original plan. But there was one scenario he hadn't mentioned.

"And if we have to take her from them?"

Thornton kept his eyes straight ahead, his dour face revealing nothing.

"Then we take her."

Her surprise registered only in an eyeblink before it was quickly hidden. She had expected him to offer another alternative, but he gave her nothing she could use to demonstrate his bias concerning Mutant X. Very well. She knew he wasn't stupid. It would just require a closer watch on the wily old fox. Sooner or later he would betray himself. After a moment she nodded in agreement.

"Your reasoning is sound. I'll update the squad leader at once and inform the Master of your suggestions."

Thornton nodded, his face impassive. If he noticed the speculative gleam that flashed in her eyes before it was quickly hidden he gave no sign. They continued from the bay in silence.

Just before they reached the door the soft buzz sounded again. Thornton tapped a couple of keys on his Blackberry.

"Developments?" Dominique asked.

Thornton looked up at her, his expression grim.

"There has been an explosion at Naxcon."

As soon as the room stopped reverberating Jesse shakily picked himself up off the floor and staggered over to where Lexa was similarly gathering herself a couple of yards away. After dispatching their foes they came over to link up with Brennan and Shalimar, then the four of them together would pick up Matt and Jaryl and get the hell out of Dodge. They had crossed the center divide over to the south side chemistry labs just in time to see Carter shoot his fire daggers at the doorway of the storage room where Brennan's head had been only a couple of seconds before. Jesse hadn't expected the explosion else he would have massed out to protect himself. As it was, though he hadn't been in the direct path, he found himself flung backward like a straw in a strong wind, the small of his back impacting painfully with the edge of a counter before knocking him on his butt.

Jesse helped Lexa to her feet and looked around, trying to gain his bearings. The powerful blast had filled the air with a mushroom cloud of smoke, dust and debris. Through ears still ringing a bit he heard a whirring sound emanating from a couple of different quarters. It took a minute for him to be able to identify what he heard as industrial strength air scrubbers that had kicked on automatically when they sensed the sudden influx of smoke. This was something else that was standard in any top research lab; a necessary precaution in the event of an accident involving an airborne pathogen. They must have their own power source, he mused thankfully, since the electricity had been cut off in this portion of the building. Hopefully they would soon be making inroads in the choking haze. He and Lexa were both coughing a bit in the polluted air.

They started making their way together through the debris, keeping an eye out for other survivors, but soon separated. Lexa quickly found the elemental who had set off the explosion. He was alive but unconscious, bleeding from his mouth and a gash on his forehead. From the look of his jaw, though, the former wound appeared to have been sustained before the explosion. His companion was nearby, trying to pull himself to a sitting position, groggy and groaning, holding the side of his head in one hand. He looked up to see Lexa coming toward him with her right hand cocked and already lit. He shook his head slightly, grimacing as he did so, and held up his other hand, bloody from a piece of shrapnel tearing through it, in a gesture of surrender. Lexa peered at him closely, gauging whether or not this was a ploy and trying to decide if she should toast him anyway just to be sure. She also took note of the heavily built containment unit lying on its side that he was leaning on for support, his elbow cupped by a dent in the panel. His eyes were dull and unfocused, offering testimony as to what portion of his anatomy struck the unit and caused the dent. Concussion, she decided, a nasty one. Slowly her hand dimmed. He was no longer a threat.

Jesse, meanwhile, had continued on toward the storage room using the light from the windows to guide his way. More light poured in from gaping holes in the ceiling, exposing sections of the second floor. Some of the openings were big enough to have allowed large objects to fall through; a desk, some filing cabinets and panels of office furniture were stacked like carelessly dropped toys in front of what had been the doorway, joining with ceiling debris to form a broken wall blocking immediate access to the room. Sagging bits of carpet drooped through from above; some small part of his mind registered amazement that they weren't on fire. Beyond the wall the floor had been swept clear as by a giant's hand except for more ceiling debris and the twisted plexiglass doors. Three rows of counters which had been in the direct line of fire had been shorn from their bolted moorings and tumbled in a heap like so many dominoes, their overhead cabinets snapped off by the torque and thrown into the pile, the contents of both scattered broadcast. Broken glass was everywhere, crunching under foot with a mixture of other granular debris. Bits of paper and drywall flakes were still floating down through the smoke like a gentle snowfall.

The odd thing was that the great majority of the damage was all in one direction. The rest of the storage room was still standing, relatively untouched. The explosion had taken out the greater part of the doorway, one front corner and part of the wall on that side, the destruction fanning outward and upward, but not behind or to this side of the blast point. The reinforced steel and concrete construction evidently contained the worst of the devastation, just as it was designed to do. Shorn of its support, the ceiling above it had come crashing down, replacing much of the blown-out area with a cavity-filled wall of debris.

Around the lab the air scrubbers began to wheeze and sputter as they strained to deal with the massive amounts of smoke and dust, but they were making obvious progress. Drawn by the currents they created, the smoke was beginning to drift toward them in lazy little curls, some even being pulled through the many holes in the debris wall, still solid enough to be seen but getting thinner. Jesse made it to the storage room and stuck his head through one of the larger holes created by an angled filing cabinet.

The air inside was thick with roiling dust being pulled toward the holes and the taint of chemicals. There must have been tanks of hazardous stuff in here, which would account for the explosion. He wiped grit from his eyes and looked again, trying to pierce through the haze. The little that remained of the door lintel had been crunched by a fallen desk. Beyond that, all he could perceive were a couple of what might be shapes lying on the floor and the darker, more solid shadow of the original wall stretching into the gloom. He flattened his palms on the rough, broken stone and concentrated, preparing to turn it intangible so he could go in and get a closer look.

Nothing happened. Jesse looked at his hands in surprise and found that they were shaking violently. Now that he had actually gotten here the ramifications of what happened were beginning to sink in. The force of the explosion had vented through the doors because structurally they were the weakest point. The rest of the room didn't have that weakness. That meant that whatever – whomever – inside the reinforced walls had to have caught the blast full force.

Brennan was dead. He had to be. If the blast could do this to reinforced masonry, what would it do to an unprotected human body? Destroy it, that's what. There would have been nothing to take cover behind even if he'd had the chance. Even worse; although he hadn't seen her duck inside the room as he had Brennan, Jesse knew in his gut that Shalimar was in there with him. Where you found one you frequently found the other, particularly in dangerous situations, and there was no sign of her out here. Jesse felt tears burn in his eyes, hot and stinging. He couldn't concentrate enough to phase through the wall, couldn't bring himself to go into that room and confront the awful reality, to see his friends, or what was left of them, torn into small, bloody pieces. There wouldn't even be enough left of them to bury. His head dropped low in despair, grief welling up inside him.

Lexa materialized from the shadows. Taking in the scene in a glance, she silently laid an uncharacteristically soft and sympathetic hand on Jesse's shoulder and squeezed gently.

Someone sneezed on the other side of the wall.

Later on Shalimar would marvel at how her mind parsed those few seconds surrounding the blast with crystalline clarity, as if time broke into segments, like a film being advanced frame by frame. _Flash!_ Comprehension of the imminent explosion._ Flash!_ The leonine strength of Brennan's hands, the surging power in his arms as he hurled her toward the back of the room_. _ _Flash!_ A sense of futility, as there was no cover, yet instinctively curling into a ball as she hit the floor, her arms wrapped protectively over her head; _Flash!_ Expecting Brennan to either drop down beside her or shield her with his own body; he was protective like that. _Flash!_ The realization that he was still on his feet, and in fact had swung between her and the tanks, tall and solid. _Flash!_ The crack and sizzle of electricity, blindingly bright, bigger and louder than anything she had ever seen from him before, blazing from his hands, not in bolts as usual, but with his palms facing each other from arms' length, his fingers curled inward, the concentrated energy arching between them like an enormous wall of blue-white fire. _Flash!_ The incredibly strong stench of ozone flooding her senses. _Flash!_ The roar of an explosion; _Flash!_ Gritting her teeth and bracing for the shock wave, which didn't have nearly the impact she expected; _Flash!_ The stink of ionized dust roiling in clouds, inundating her. _Flash!_ The slow shriek of shearing metal. _Flash!_ Multiple crashes of falling debris, but miraculously none of it reaching her. Silence.

Cautiously Shalimar uncoiled, coughing and choking from the curtain of falling dust which covered her like a blanket, clogging her senses. Half blind from the flash, her ears still ringing from the roar of the explosion, she straightened slowly and very carefully, testing her limbs for injury. Though sore and stinging from the earlier glass cuts, everything moved with her, which she took as a good sign. She lifted her head and wiped at her eyes, peering through the gloom. Dust particles danced in the light from the ripped-open ceiling; tendrils of smoke slowly wafted up and away, gradually thinning the haze around her.

She couldn't fathom how she survived such a powerful, contained explosion. The wall where the tanks were racked had been pulverized. So had the floor beneath the racks, as well as the doorway. Shorn of support and also in response to the blast itself, the ceiling and parts of the floor above had collapsed, cutting them off from the rest of the lab with great hunks of rubble. It wasn't solid; she could see numerous holes of various sizes spotted all through it, helping to filter the dust away. The devastation, though, was oddly selective; the area where she was lying and behind her was essentially undamaged, as if the force of the blast had been blocked, or perhaps channeled upward somehow.

Shalimar got her hands beneath her and pressed slowly to her knees. She pushed a sheaf of whitened hair from her eyes. Her mouth and nose were filled with acrid, bitter powder. Her ears still rang from the blast, although that was beginning to subside. Now if only the pounding in her skull would do likewise. Her head felt thick and fuzzy; she just couldn't seem to get a grasp on exactly what happened. The choking dust seemed to have clogged her brain as well as her senses.

She sneezed, and in that instant of temporary clearing her nostrils picked up a scent that cleared the cobwebs from her mind in a flash. Memory and knowledge fused together into instant, horrible clarity. Brennan! Now she understood why he hadn't hit the floor with her, and what the huge burst of electrical energy meant. She leaped to her feet, her heart turning to a lump of solid ice, and started scrambling toward one particular pile of rubble where the smell of his blood was the strongest.

He lay angled on his right side, unconscious, his left arm folded protectively atop his head. A heavy chunk of I-beam had shorn loose from its parent in the ceiling directly above and landed across his exposed ribcage. Cement blocks and what might be pieces of the tanks or their steel racks had both his legs trapped below the knees. Bits of ceiling panel and broken rods of reinforced steel lay all around. Behind his head was a chunk of concrete with a thin line of blood staining its broken, knife-sharp edge. She flung it aside frantically along with some smaller pieces of debris and dropped down in the narrow space between his head and the I-beam.

Blood dripped from a nasty slash across his left forearm, no doubt caused by that piece of concrete she just tossed. As muscled as his shoulder and bicep was and the way the arm was angled Shalimar would have to move it slightly to be able to get at the carotid artery to check for a heartbeat. She lifted it gently, wincing at the fracture she felt beneath the cut, and carefully eased it aside, exposing the side of his neck. Her hand trembled as she slipped it into the open space, terrified of what she would find, or rather not find, as she placed her hypersensitive fingers on the pulse-point in his neck.

"Shalimar!"

Her head twisted at the exultant shout. Two figures appeared from the gloom; Jesse and Lexa had just phased through the debris. They darted forward.

Jesse's immediate impulse to seize her in a joyful, rib-cracking embrace died stillborn in the next instant when he caught sight of Brennan half buried in the rubble. Elation turned to cold fear in a heartbeat. Seeing her hand on his neck Jesse looked down at her in mute dread, unwilling to put voice to the question because he was very much afraid that the terrible answer was already chiseled into her frozen features. Her wide, anxious eyes met his.

"He's alive." She didn't trust herself to say anything more. Jesse would find out on his own soon enough. The spark of life she felt when she pressed her fingers to the artery in his neck had been frighteningly weak. Her feral hearing picked up a faint, horrible sort of gurgle as his one good lung fought to suck in air. She also knew that there was more blood than was currently visible on his arm – a lot more. She could smell it.

She rose and stepped around Brennan. Positioning her feet for optimum leverage, she seized the I-beam with adrenaline-boosted strength and levered it aside. Jesse moved into the place she vacated and knelt down.

"Oh, God!" he exclaimed, appalled, at his first look at the damage. Lexa gasped.

Blood was spreading across Brennan's gray Henley shirt from both directions of the point where the ridge of the I-beam had slammed into him, collapsing that portion of his ribcage and making the side of his chest look deformed. Jesse gingerly pulled the cotton fabric loose and eased it up to expose a deep, oozing gash about ten inches long. He pulled a clean handkerchief out of his back pocket and applied it to the open wound.

"Keep pressure on that," he said to Shalimar. He probed the chest and side area gently, his expression grim.

"Four, maybe five broken ribs," he reported presently, "The spine looks okay. Left lung collapsed, probably punctured. Breathing is uneven and shallow." The chest wall was bruising massively. Judging by how far down and around the discoloration was progressing there was probably some internal damage as well, but there was no way to tell for sure right now and Jesse didn't want to pile on. Things were bad enough as it was. Shalimar leaned in beside him.

"His left forearm is also broken; it looks like he tried to protect his head. He could still have a concussion, or even a skull fracture. I haven't had a chance to check yet."

"What the hell happened?" Jesse demanded, using hands and feet to clear himself a larger space.

"They had chemical tanks stored here," she explained, "There were about a half dozen with flammable markings on them standing in racks on that wall. Brennan must have seen the fire elemental targeting them. He threw me to the back, then let off this really huge blast of electricity just as they blew up. I don't know what he was trying to do, but…"

"I do," Lexa put in, "He had an idea that he could create an electrical field to block energy. He was experimenting at Sanctuary before this whole mess started." In a few terse sentences she described the practice session she had interrupted that morning.

"And blocking the explosion forced part of the energy upward," Jesse said, "The original idea looks like it worked – I don't see any shrapnel-type injuries."

He could almost visualize what must have happened when the two fields of energy collided. The explosion was deflected but the impact shattered the shield. The energy couldn't be destroyed, of course. It had to go somewhere, drawn outward in part by the energy of the explosion as it rebounded, and partly upward. Jesse almost shook his head at the irony. In all likelihood it was probably Brennan's own electricity that had brought the ceiling debris down on him, but even if he'd known what would happen he wouldn't have had time angle his shield properly to prevent it. All he had time to do was save Shalimar. In theory, the idea had been a brilliant one. Jesse grimaced. _Yeah – except for nearly being crushed to death, it was a great move. _He moved down toward Brennan's feet, stepping carefully over pieces of warped, sharp-edged metal, almost turning his ankle on a fragment of cement that crumbled unexpectedly underfoot. Lexa moved in to finish clearing around the rest of him.

"Uh-oh."

Jesse hadn't liked the look of the way Brennan's legs were pinned. He phased his hands through the blocks, feeling around carefully. The two women looked over at him.

"Compound fracture, left leg, above the ankle," he reported. Shalimar started to reach over to grab the side of the offending concrete, but Jesse shook his head.

"No, don't – there's an edge underneath caught on the bone," he said, "If you yank it you'll make the fracture worse." He thought for a fast second. "Let's do this: I'll phase the debris; Shal, you pull him free. Lexa, I need you here."

The others moved into position. Shalimar eased Brennan more onto his back so she could get a better grip under his arms, wincing inwardly a little as she felt her forearm rub against the third degree burn on his back. Jesse took a breath, then nodded. As his power turned the debris intangible, the feral lifted her injured teammate and began backing up. Lexa slid her hands underneath the calf of Brennan's leg, supporting it at the break as it came free. It was easy to see where it was; the bone poking from the inside brought the leg of his jeans to a point, a smear of blood marking the spot. Shalimar kept going until she had him well clear, then lowered him gently to the floor.

Jesse knelt beside Brennan's legs to continue his examination of the fracture. Lexa stepped back out of his way. She wanted to help, but really couldn't see how she could at the moment. "He's going to need surgery. I know a doctor we can take him to."

Jesse nodded his acknowledgement and kept working. Feeling very much like a fifth wheel, Lexa went back to the debris wall and peered through. The visibility was getting better thanks to the air scrubbers, which she could hear laboring mightily.

Air was the only thing she could see moving. It looked like the opposition had been successfully taken out – at least temporarily. That bought them a little time; how much was anyone's guess. After that – well, the storage room itself would protect them somewhat, but sooner or later they were going to have to come out. They were also going to have to devise some way of carrying Brennan without exacerbating his injuries. Could Jesse phase them all out? Lexa didn't know. It might therefore be prudent to have an exit that didn't depend on him.

She studied the piled debris, searching for the thinnest point with the idea of carving an opening. When she was certain she'd found it she used her laser power to start carefully slicing a vertical line through the stone, adjusting slightly wherever possible to take advantage of as many holes as she could. With her other hand she pushed the cut pieces out of the way, trying to angle them sideways so they wouldn't have to stumble over them so much on the way out. Cutting the door through the back wall would have been slightly closer to the Helix, but from what she could see the stone was a lot thicker there. She had chosen the thinner wall because it was quicker, but also to help conserve her energy. She had a nasty feeling that she was going to need it before they made it out of here.

Shalimar took the opportunity to crouch at Brennan's head, her fingers moving carefully through his thick, dust-caked hair. The fallout was still coming down, although not nearly as much, the drywall flakes whitening the grey cast of his skin to a deathly pallor. Those that landed in his blood took on a pink tinge, adding an incongruously cheerful bit of color to the monotone backdrop. 

"The skull and neck seem intact," she reported presently. Her fingers strayed once more to his neck. She looked up apprehensively. "Pulse is becoming erratic."

Powder mixed with sweat was forming a thin layer of paste on Brennan's face. Wanting to do something, anything, to help, she thought to wipe it away but had no handkerchief or similar cloth at hand. Improvising, she brushed the dust off the ruffle of her blouse's neckline and discovered that her hands were trembling. Impatient with herself for allowing nerves to affect her at a time like this, she grasped the flimsy material in an extra-firm grip and ripped it loose with one long pull. Twisting the scrap around her fingers, she started to clean gently around his nostrils and mouth. Something gleamed wetly near the ear canal. She touched it. Her fingertip came back red, and she stiffened in alarm.

"There's blood in his ears!"

Jesse swore under his breath. "Stay on the carotid," he ordered, moving up to kneel once more by Brennan's side. Damn. Bleeding from the ears meant internal injuries. Not unexpected, but definitely not good. Not good at all. His jaw set in a grim line. While they all had been given training in field medicine techniques, Adam had been the one with the actual medical degree. The little Jesse did know was practically useless; he had no computer to help him, no equipment, no nothing save the Helix's medkit, which, being in the Helix, wouldn't do him any good at the moment. All he had been able to offer so far was his handkerchief on the side wound, which was already soaked through with blood.

What he wouldn't give for his laptop! At least he would be able to review emergency trauma procedures, but without it he felt hopelessly out of his depth. Jesse was the team's computer and all-around tech specialist. Since pretty much everything at their home base inside Sanctuary was beyond-cutting-edge high tech, that made Jesse the repairman for just about everything from the computers to the Double Helix. But that didn't necessarily include the human body, although he got the feeling that the others were unconsciously looking toward him for that skill set. He was the fix-it guy, wasn't he? If he could strip down the Helix's aeronautic systems and put them back together again, why couldn't he patch together his best friend's shattered ribs and crushed lung? Moving parts were moving parts, right? If something was broken, you replaced the part, rebuilt any severed connections, and everything was fine. That was the way his mind had been trained.

He fought back a wave of panic. He wasn't a doctor, dammit! Sure, he had started to educate himself in more advanced emergency medical techniques, but he was a long way from feeling confident or competent to replace Adam in that regard. Brennan's injuries were far beyond what Jesse felt qualified to handle.

His hands moved carefully toward the center of Brennan's chest, probing for additional breaks. His jaw clenched as flesh gave under his fingers. He couldn't do this. He had no tools. They needed to get Brennan out of here, to a _real_ doctor, the one Lexa mentioned, and fast. But how? He looked around frantically for something, anything that might serve as a makeshift stretcher.

"Where are Matt and Jaryl?" Shalimar asked, her face as pale as the dust shrouding her clothes and hair. The pressure under her fingertips flickered. Surely the empath could help Brennan; she had healed his knee quickly enough. These injuries were much more serious, of course, but perhaps she could at least stabilize him until they could get him further medical help.

Lexa had asked herself that question earlier, and didn't like the answer.

"Either they're down or they took off," she said, rounding off the last sharp edge on her completed doorway. Privately she was betting on the latter, but either way it didn't look like they were going to get much help from that quarter.

"They wouldn't have taken off!" Jesse snapped. Jaryl had come back for him once; he refused to believe that she wouldn't again if it were at all possible. He searched his mind, feeling for that someone-looking-over-his-shoulder sensation he felt when Matt responded to his thoughts earlier. It wasn't there. Shalimar, however, perked up, her feral hearing penetrating through the grinding rasp of the scrubbers.

"I think I hear them," she said, turning her head slowly, "And it sounds like they have their hands full."

Jesse shot an I-told-you-so look at Lexa. She shrugged.

"Maybe I should go see if I can help.

She had gotten only a couple of steps before the irregular beat beneath Shalimar's fingers winked out.

"No pulse!" she cried.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Jesse reacted instantly.

"I'll push, you breathe!" he barked to Shalimar, already positioning his hands to start CPR, "Lexa, watch our backs!"

"Wait – what about the broken ribs?" Lexa protested, "You'll tear his lung to ribbons!"

"That he can survive," the feral stated the obvious as Jesse started pumping Brennan's chest, counting a rhythm of five compressions per set. Shalimar pulled his chin up and checked that his airway was clear. Blood was beginning to leak from his nose. She pinched it, placed her mouth over his and blew as hard as she could, trying to force air into his lungs.

Jesse thought he felt a slight give with each push, but he couldn't worry about that now. He finished the third set of reps and looked over at Shal. She shook her head. He repeated the whole process and got the same response.

Lexa stood at the doorway, one eye peeled for possible attackers, the other watching her teammates in their frenzied, futile efforts. She understood the sentiment – they had been together for a long time, and coming so quickly after the loss of Adam and the psionic it would be doubly hard for them to let go – but there came a time when you had to cut your losses. There was no telling how long they had before the Naxcon forces regrouped and attacked again. Surprise had whittled down the odds earlier, but that was gone now. Once they regrouped, Acosta's forces would be coming for blood, and would find their outnumbered foes boxed into a small space with no cover. This room would become a killing field.

A hard decision had to be made. Lexa had no problem with taking Brennan's body with them if either Jesse or Shalimar could manage it. There was no point in leaving it behind for those inhuman ghouls to carve up, but they had to get out of here now. Brennan was dead. The only thing left to do was to take him home.

She shook her head sadly. She obviously hadn't known him as well as the others; hadn't even really liked him all that much. But he had been gutsy and a fighter, and she respected that. He died the way he wanted, saving the life of someone he loved. It was time to let him rest. He had earned it. She shifted uncomfortably. She was still very much the outsider in this tightly-knit group, and they would probably resent her for this, but someone had to broach the painful truth. Brennan had sacrificed himself, and the only way to honor that sacrifice was to go. Lexa wished there was a better way, but there wasn't. Not if they wanted to get out of here alive. She coughed to clear her throat.

"Look, I know you don't want to hear this …," she began.

"Then don't say it!" Jesse snapped.

He knew exactly what Lexa had been about to say. The same thoughts were starting to leak into his own head, little worms of doubt crawling inch by inch past his defenses. Brennan was gone, and there wasn't a thing he could do about it. The damage had just been too great, too much even for the elemental's strength and tremendous will to live. Jesse was just fooling himself here, just going through the motions. It was hopeless. The grief he felt before he phased through the wall magnified like an exploding star.

_Let it go, Jess._

Huh? Jesse's head came up with a jerk. Who said that? He glanced at Shalimar. She was still blowing air vigorously into Brennan's mouth, oblivious to anything else. She obviously hadn't heard a thing. The whisper must have been inside his head, merely his imagination. He hadn't really heard anything. Or could that have been Matt speaking telepathically? It didn't feel the same, yet he still searched his mind for the sensations he experienced earlier. He didn't find them, and Matt didn't answer.

_You did everything you could. I know it hurts, but you have to let me go. Get Shalimar and Lexa out of here. That's more important now. You have to be strong for them. _

In his shock Jesse actually missed a couple of beats on his CPR compressions, although he caught himself and kept going on autopilot. Those were Brennan's words, what he would likely say in this situation, but was that his actual voice? Was it really over? Jesse closed his eyes tightly, so tightly that moisture squeezed out in wet trails from the corners. No. He wouldn't believe it. This was just his mind preying on his fear of inadequacy and failure, trying to rationalize what was starting to look like an unthinkable outcome. He would open his eyes, and Brennan's ghost would _**not**_ be kneeling beside him. He opened them cautiously.

There was still a thinning haze in the air, but no ghost, thank God. It was all in his head, just as he thought. He just needed to concentrate more, focus on what he was doing. He could not allow himself to waver. He started another set of compressions, pushing even harder, letting his renewed resolve flow into the thrusts.

_It's okay, Jess_.

_No, dammit!_ Jesse ruthlessly closed his mind to that insidious whisper. Whether it really was his best friend speaking to him one last time or merely his own fears and imagination didn't matter. Jesse wasn't abandoning the fight this easily. _Brennan wouldn't give up on me – I'm not giving up on him!_ He was getting winded; his wrists were starting to ache, but he kept pumping, ticking off the count mechanically in his head. "Come on!" he grunted, panting. "Come on!"

Time seemed to slow to a standstill, the world closing in around the three of them. The longer they worked the less likely they were to succeed, and they both knew it. Shalimar was still administering artificial respiration in tandem with his thrusts, trying to blow air into Brennan's lungs with the fierceness of a woman possessed. Blood leaking from his nostrils smeared her face every time she placed her mouth over his, the taste and smell slashing through her feral senses, driving her ever closer to full-blown despair. Her tears were falling freely now, leaving wet spots in the coating of dust on Brennan's face.

"Damn you, Brennan, don't you do this!" she burst out suddenly between breaths, "I'll kick your ass all the way back to Sanctuary!"

It was apparent to Jesse that she didn't even realize she had spoken aloud, much less recognized the total lack of logic in her threat, but he was too busy to do any more than process her words. He finished another group of three sets and halted, breathing heavily as he glanced over at her, flexing his wrists to give them some relief before inevitably taking up the rhythm again. Shalimar hesitated, her concentration centered in her fingertips.

"Yes," she breathed after a few seconds, astonishment and wonder blending together in that single word. She looked over at him, and he could see the barest glimmering of hope in her wide, liquid eyes. "It's weak, but he's back."

Jesse leaned back on his heels in pure relief, his eyes closing briefly in a wordless, heartfelt prayer of thanksgiving.

"Maybe he heard you," Lexa commented from behind her, then stiffened at the sound of approaching footsteps. She flattened herself along the wall, her right hand beginning to glow in anticipation of a preemptive strike. A few seconds later she powered down as Jaryl and Matt, both looking rather disheveled, appeared at the doorway. The others relaxed, but Jesse's brain went into vapor lock for a few seconds. Although he knew what to expect, had even been preparing himself since he saw her on camera, the sight of her in the flesh still rendered him speechless. Her eyes were just as brilliantly green as he remembered.

"Hang on, kids," Jaryl said, reading the situation in an instant and hurrying over to the fallen mutant, her husband at her shoulder, "Help has arrived." She dropped to her knees beside Kilmartin and smiled.

"Hello, Jesse," she said, "It's been a long time."

Shalimar and Lexa looked at each other, then at their molecular teammate. Jesse just shook his head; now was not the time to explain. They had other things to worry about.

"Oh, boy."

Jaryl had immediately placed her hands on Brennan's chest, looking inward to assess his condition. A wave of golden energy flowed from them into the stricken elemental. His body reacted with quick, barely discernable intake of breath. Jesse got out of her way and went over to stand beside Lexa.

Jaryl looked up at her husband. Their gazes locked. Consternation quickly clouded Matt's face. Jaryl returned his look steadily. Matt's eyes closed briefly, his face a war of violently conflicting shock, objection and searing fear. She waited, and as she did so she fed more biokinetic energy into Brennan's body. Finally, with the exhalation of a deep breath, Matt got his emotions back under some semblance of control. He nodded once in tight resignation and held out his hand. His wife shook her head.

"Later," she said, "Time is more important."

Lexa leaned toward Jesse. "Does anyone else feel like were missing something here?" she asked in a low voice.

Jaryl took a deep breath and closed her eyes. The glow from her hands spread over the whole of Brennan's torso like a soft amber blanket and stayed there, bathing him in a nimbus of energy. Matt took one last lingering look at her, then abruptly rose into the air, lifted by his telekinetic power.

"Hey, where are you going?" Startled, Shalimar rose to her feet.

Wordlessly Matt looked down, his eyes meeting Jesse's. The molecular flinched, staggering back a step as if dazed by some sort of impact, both hands going to clutch his head. Matt maneuvered through the ceiling hole and was soon out of sight.

"What the hell was that all about?" Lexa demanded.

Shalimar reached out quickly to steady her molecular teammate.

"Are you okay?" she asked solicitously.

Disoriented, Jesse gave his head a little shake, trying to process what just happened. He felt flushed, as with a fever, at the influx of concepts and images into his head, a unique kind of knowledge not dependent upon words suddenly just _there_, as if it all had somehow been injected into his brain. The sensation wasn't unpleasant exactly; more like startling and disconcerting. His mind reeled as it tried to sift through all the information and put it into some sort of coherent form. Something slim and strong tightened around his body, supporting him, but he had no idea who or what it was. He drew a shaky breath, then another, coughing a little in the clearing air. The flush faded as order began to emerge from the chaos, his brain processing the data into recognizable patterns.

His gaze fell on Jaryl sitting on her heels beside Brennan, her eyes closed, both of their bodies as still as death. In a perception seen not with his eyes but with the inner vision of understanding he saw that the energy field diffusing from her hands across Brennan's chest, which he originally took to be steady, was in fact moving, pulsating with a life all its own. Tiny, almost imperceptible streams were imbedded in the larger field, little tides of the pure essence of life ebbing and flowing from her to Brennan and back again, guided and protected by a stronger river made of twin currents braided together. Watching it with the innate sense of knowing, he fancied he could almost see his friend's injuries transferring to her atom by atom, see the flow pause and lighten in color slightly over him, then resume, reinforcement coming in the next blush of amber.

Red crashed through the gold next; the red of warning, of risk, of danger stark and near, surmounted by the pendulum of a giant timepiece dominating the scene. Urgency was there too, casting its shadow over the face of the clock. Beside the clock stood a great stone sentinel with far-seeing eyes watching over the entire scene. Little pockets of darkness began to form around the periphery, but the sentinel stood fast, keeping the shades at bay. It turned its monolithic gaze on him for a long moment, then once again took up its vigil. Jesse understood.

Something squeezed him hard around the middle; he heard the sharp, firm sound of his name spoken close to his ear. Blinking rapidly, he started as he came back to the larger world around him, and looked into Shalimar's concerned brown eyes. He straightened and nodded, not knowing if she said anything else, but recognizing the question anyway.

"I'm all right," he said to her.

Shalimar's hand came up to rest lightly his shoulder.

"What just happened? It almost looked like Matt attacked you."

Jesse gave his head a negative shake.

"It was a telepathic burst," he replied, "Matt didn't have time to explain, so he asked me to do it for him. Here's what we need to do …"

He never finished the sentence. Lexa, who had been keeping a weather eye on the area outside the storage room, saw shadowy forms begin to gather in the haze.. Her head snapped around.

"We've got company!"

"Report, Mr. Voss."

Called away from the bank of security monitors by the summons, Jason Voss, Head of Security for Naxcon, turned to his computer screen and met the cold obsidian glare of Damien Acosta with the air of a seasoned professional rallying after an initial catastrophe. This had been a debacle from the start, but with the latest developments Voss believed he could turn the situation around. More than that, in fact. There was a very good chance now that he would not only retain custody of Target Alpha, but bag her rescuers as well. Much as he wanted to strangle Dillon Carter for his insane vendetta and the subsequent destruction of parts of the first and second floors, he couldn't deny that his actions just might have turned defeat into victory.

It had been pure luck that Mutant X broke into Dr. Harrison's lab just before the additional security contingent went to assist in transferring Target Alpha, else he wouldn't have known as soon as he did that the facility was under attack. The second team had found their fellows unconscious, and had called it in. Since his camera feed here in the security office showed nothing amiss, it was obvious what had happened. Intruders, probably from The Dominion, were on site and had engineered several video loops to disguise their actions.

For all the good it did them. Anyone who ever watched TV knew of this trick. It had been child's play for Voss to disable the loops and return to the actual feeds. He helped design this system, and had included some redundancies with just this ploy in mind. He had been expecting something like this ever since they acquired the woman this morning.

What he hadn't been expecting was the identity of the intruders, at least not this soon. Their intelligence indicated that The Dominion was keeping Mutant X out of the picture, yet there they were. He recognized Shalimar Fox and Brennan Mulwray right off from the dossiers Mr. Acosta had recently provided of Mutant X. The problem was that his people weren't prepared to deal with a commando force of this caliber. The opportunity to acquire Target Alpha had come along too quickly. His regular force had only just begun working out with the new electrically-charged weaponry, and of course training of the Special Forces personnel had been understandably meager. Their life spans were limited as it was after the grafting process. There was no sense in hastening the inevitable with excessive training and burning out their mutant DNA too soon. It might cut down on future recruitment if their guinea pigs knew what was in store for them. He would just have to make do with what he had and hope that the innate pugnacity of the street-bred thugs, their new abilities and superior odds would prevail. There would be casualties; several were nearing their expiry dates, and it was a waste of good shock troops, but it couldn't be helped. Besides, as Mr. Acosta pointed out earlier, they were already in the process of creating more.

The lack of proper training was evident in the effortless way that Fox disposed of the additional security team, which was why Voss immediately sent the nearest Special Forces team, backed by another group of uniformed security, to intercept the pair in Dr. Harrison's lab. Two more SF units were dispatched to converge from opposite directions on the first floor. Voss reasoned that Mutant X must be present in its entirety, and that as the tech specialist of the group Jesse Kilmartin had engineered the camera loops, most likely from the server room on the main floor. He probably had Lexa Pierce with him providing cover. The plan was for his two SF teams to catch Pierce and Kilmartin between them and capture them by sheer weight of numbers.

Unfortunately for his men, Mutant X immediately set about justifying their formidable reputation. Fox and Mulwray struck hard and fast, taking out nearly half of their opposition in the first few seconds. Even Target Alpha, freed from her sub-dermal governor by the elemental, fought ferociously, leaving two of the Special Forces operatives seriously injured. Voss got the impression that she had somehow used her powers in an offensive fashion, although he wasn't quite clear on how they were utilized. He had already forwarded that bit of intelligence to Mr. Acosta. In the end, though, he thought the SF unit had their quarry captured in the lab antechamber – until two electro-clubs had torn themselves free from their owners and flung themselves like giant demented insects at his people. It was then he realized that the woman's telekinetic husband was also loose in the facility, although he apparently took great care to stay out of camera range. Voss had no idea where the man was. He didn't even know what he looked like.

That was what was bothering him the most. The backup unit he sent down the northeast stairs toward the lab to cut off the fugitives' escape reported that the clubs had charged them, exploding when hit by a bolt of Mulwray's lightning. SF Unit 2 coming down from the second floor had experienced a delaying attack by an unknown assailant – again, likely the telekinetic. Since telekinesis was a skill that required visual contact to be effective, at least in his understanding, that meant he had to have been at Harrison's lab, then gone up the southwest stairs with his wife, Fox and Mulwray. He probably paused just long enough to delay SF 2, and then exited the stairway on the main floor. The cameras there, though, never picked him up, although they saw the other three. Nor did either of the SF units actually see him. So where was he?

Voss hadn't dwelled on the question, but had marshaled his forces via walkie-talkie and dispersed them for intercept. It had turned into an unmitigated disaster. Mutant X and their allies had staged three nearly simultaneous ambushes. Despite his warnings, two of the three had been eminently successful. The third had turned into a running battle with Fox and Mulwray, who were on the verge of prevailing until Dillon Carter managed to corner them in the storage room and blow up the chemical tanks racked there. Unfortunately, the explosion took out the cameras in the area as well. He immediately dispatched a couple of survivors from the laboratory to get up there and report what was happening. Those reports were already coming in.

"Reconnaissance confirms what I told you earlier, Mr. Acosta," he said, "Half of Mutant X was in the storage room when it blew. The other two members have since joined them there. One of my guards reports seeing a laser beam carving a doorway from inside the room. That can only be Lexa Pierce."

"Agreed. So it was Fox and Mulwray that were caught in the explosion?"

"Yes sir – I've had an eyewitness report to that effect."

"So they're either dead or severely injured."

"Just Mulwray, sir. I sent a spotter up to the second floor to observe them through one of the holes in the ceiling. He's down and looks bad; Fox and Kilmartin appear to be working on him. Fox seems to be relatively unhurt."

Acosta raised an eyebrow at that. The security chief had no explanation for how she could have escaped unscathed and so offered none. His employer waved a dismissing hand. It was an intriguing question, but one for another time.

"What about that fool, Carter?"

"Stunned, but not seriously injured. They're bringing him around."

The receiver in his ear chirped. Voss listened intently.

"Sir, Target Alpha and her husband have just arrived at the storage room."

"Excellent! Now we have them all right where we want them, and Mulwray's condition will keep them there." The image on the screen considered for a moment. "What are your current resources?"

"Mutant X took a heavy toll, sir; there's no getting around that. At least five are dead, mostly from burnout; several others are incapacitated. We're going to need a triage team as soon as possible. Backup forces would also be advisable if there are any available." Voss shook his head, still marveling at the casualties Mutant X had been able to inflict in the face of far superior numbers. He wished he could have operatives of that caliber on his own staff. "As for our remaining resources: Carter will make eight Special Forces operatives available, along with ten uniformed security officers. The SF operatives are moving into position around the doorway opening as we speak. Of my own security, I've got two providing situational intelligence. Five more armed with heavy weaponry are guarding the back to discourage them in case Kilmartin tries to get his team out that way."

"I want them alive if possible, Mr. Voss."

Voss nodded crisply. "I anticipated that, sir. I've sent the remaining three equipped with tranquilizer guns up to the second floor with orders to fire only if necessary. The SF agents will then move in and subdue them with sub-dermal governors. We should have them all in custody shortly."

"Advise your men to go ahead and take down the telekinetic with the tranquilizer guns. He's the most dangerous of the group."

"Yes, sir, I'll relay that right away. I'll also warn them again not to harm the woman."

"Very good, Mr. Voss. I'll send a triage team and another Special Forces unit right away." The image on the screen leaned forward, its dark eyes burning like pools of molten lava.

"Take them."

Lexa peered back through one of the smaller holes to get a count of the enemy.

"I make out six or seven," she reported presently, "They're taking up positions in front of us. It looks like they're getting ready to move in."

Frankly, she was surprised there weren't more. She recognized only one from the group she and Jesse took on; the one he handcuffed in a door. From the numbers remaining the rest of the team had fought with similar success, and now the survivors were here looking for some major payback. A cold, grim reality settled into the pit of her stomach. This was what came of sentiment. They had waited too long, and now they were trapped like mice in a cage. Whether or not Jaryl could have saved Brennan was about to become moot. Well, she sure as hell wasn't going down without a fight.

Shalimar touched Jesse's arm. "Back door?"

Jesse darted to the rear wall and phased his head through. His action precipitated a flurry of gunfire. Hurriedly he pulled it back in.

"I don't think so."

Shalimar looked out through another hole, marking the positions of the various enhanced operatives. For some reason they seemed to be holding their positions, as if waiting for something. Maybe she could use that to her advantage. She glanced up at the decimated ceiling, trying to gauge the damage and whether or not she could leap up there without collapsing more of it. Jesse hastened back to his teammates.

"Okay, here's the deal," he said in a low tone, "Matt will cover us as much as he can while keeping watch for outside reinforcements. We need to fight a holding action here until Jaryl is through absorbing what she can of Brennan's injuries. "

"Absorbing?" Shalimar questioned. Jesse nodded.

"That's how her power works," he explained, "She transfers physical injuries to her own body, then heals them. She can also strengthen the injured person by transmitting some of her own biokinetic energy. That's what she did a minute ago."

"How does Matt plan to cover us, and why couldn't he do it from here?" Lexa demanded.

"He figured that once our friends out there realized he wasn't with us, they'd come looking for him, taking some of the heat off us," Jesse answered, "He also needed to get to someplace high and centralized in order to …"

"Freeze!"

Three pairs of eyes shot skyward to see a trio of rifles trained on them from the upper floor. Lexa eased a hand behind her, letting the gathering flow of energy ignite her fingers.

"Don't try it, lady!" one of them snapped from above. A red targeting laser spot appeared on her chest. With a fulminating glare she powered down and slowly raised her hands. One of the snipers waved at the glowering Special Forces agents, who started forward en masse.

"Where's this cover you were talking about?" she mumbled disgustedly to Jesse out of the corner of her mouth. Jesse heard the bitter recrimination in her voice and it fueled his own rising desperation. _A few more minutes – why couldn't we have had just a few more minutes? _His thoughts raced. They had to do something, make some kind of a break to take the battle away from Brennan and Jaryl, but as soon as they even twitched the snipers would open fire. He couldn't shield everyone, so whom should he cover? Shalimar? Her speed gave her the best chance of escaping; she was already tensed and ready to spring. Jaryl and Brennan were helpless, locked in an empathic trance. Surely they wouldn't shoot them; it was obvious that neither was any threat. Besides, they needed Jaryl unharmed. That left Lexa, their only remaining long-range attacker, but even she couldn't prevail against such odds. They were screwed.

All of this darted through his head in a fraction of a second. _Matt, where are you? _He set himself, preparing to mass out in a shield for Lexa when in that split second he had the sense of an ephemeral presence at his shoulder. He exhaled with a sigh of relief and looked up, instinctively knowing what was needed of him.

"Cover coming up."

Suddenly the trailing edges of shredded carpet hanging down from the floor above rose up in a wave with a ripping sound, sending the three snipers tumbling. Jesse seized Lexa's hand and ran toward the doorway, releasing it when he got there and massing in front of her. Taking her cue, Lexa raised both hands and fired a blitzkrieg of laser shots in all directions, aiming more to scatter than taking the time for a killing shot. Her ploy was eminently successful. The grafted mutants, thinking that their foes had been rendered harmless, dived for cover with much cursing. One did get off a snap shot; some sort of green energy splattered off Jesse's body but did not penetrate. Both then ducked to either side of the door. Jesse glanced around and saw that someone was missing. Where was Shalimar?

The feral had leaped up to the second floor in the carpet's wake. Now she came to stand at the edge of one of the larger holes, the three rifles in her hands. She had a very satisfied look on her face.

"I've brought you some souvenirs," she said, dropping one to Jesse, "Tranquilizer guns – I guess they want us alive."

"More likely they want Jaryl alive, so they're not taking any chances," Jesse said.

"Oh, that's comforting," Lexa commented sardonically. She caught the gun Shal tossed her by the barrel and leaned it against the wall beside her. She might have to resort to using it later, but for now she preferred her own weapon and her own personal ammunition.

Ordinarily Shalimar wouldn't have bothered with the light-duty rifles, but it had been a long, hard fight and they were all wearing down. Lexa in particular was starting to look drained, the paleness of her skin enhanced by the darker colors of her shiner. Shalimar acknowledged with an inward grimace that she herself probably didn't look a whole lot better. The trank guns weren't what she would have wanted, but they might help them conserve some measure of their waning strength. She jumped back down to the storage room, getting clear just an instant before a bolt of that green energy sizzled through the hole from somewhere outside their haven. Lexa started to retaliate with a laser bolt of faded red, but Jesse stayed her hand.

"Save your energy," he advised.

"For what?" Lexa snapped. Through one of the holes she could see the grafted mutants gathering themselves again.

Suddenly one of them gave a wild yell and they all charged, intent upon storming the doorway. Lexa braced herself, waiting for Jesse to mass out to act as her shield again, all the while cursing inventively in three different languages. This was it, and she knew it, whether the others admitted it or not. It was seven against three, and the three had no cover and limited space to maneuver. The bad guys were coming in too fast; there was no way they could keep from being overwhelmed. Gritting her teeth, she prepared call up every last ounce of energy she had left.

"Wait," Jesse said softly. He still hadn't massed, and Lexa wondered what the hell he was waiting for - to see the whites of their eyes? They were more red than white, red for blood and a whole lot of vengeance. Lexa's nerves tightened to the shrieking point. The howling mob was only ten feet away; Jesse hadn't massed and she couldn't wait any more. Her hands whipped up, both of them glowing orange, and she sighted on the nearest of them, the man with the red beard and Harley Davidson T-shirt. Jesse stepped in front of her, blocking her shot, but did not mass. Before she could push him out of the way Red Beard suddenly smashed full tilt into an invisible barrier just in front of the doorway. She would have had no idea what he hit if the impact hadn't made it shimmer briefly. With the surreal feeling that she had inadvertently stepped into a Road Runner cartoon, Lexa watched in amazement as the red-bearded stand-in for Wyle E. Coyote hung there for a second, then sort of slithered unconscious to the floor.

Two more near him realized what happened but couldn't stop in time. They bounced off with somewhat less vigor and were able to retain their senses, if not their feet. The others stood back as the remaining moleculars and elementals among them began firing blasts of energy, trying to pierce the barrier. It shuddered and became visual at the impact points, but it held.

Shalimar was watching from a vantage point on the other side of the doorway.

"What is that?" she whispered.

"Matt has a telekinetic shield protecting the front," Jesse told them, "He has no idea how long he'll be able to hold it. He's also keeping watch in case they bring in reinforcements from the outside. We need to use the time he's buying to make plans for getting out of here – which we can't do until Jaryl breaks the trance. That's what she meant about time being important. She needs time to get Brennan stable enough to be able to move him safely – if she can."

His feral sister gave him an odd look.

"Matt told you all that with that – what did you call it?"

"A telepathic burst," Jesse answered, "I gotta tell you it was weird. Effective, but weird."

Lexa stepped forward. "Yeah, whatever. We still have to get out of here. I say we take the fight to them – right now." Shalimar nodded in agreement.

"Not so fast," Jesse said, "There's more to this than taking out our grafted friends out there. We also have to deal with the artillery behind us if we're going to get back to the Helix. Most importantly, we need to protect Jaryl and Brennan. While they're connected that way they're dangerously vulnerable. Understand - anything that happens to one happens to both. A punch, a stray shot, a ricochet, whatever."

He paused, meeting each gaze in turn. They needed to fully comprehend the situation here. There was no way of knowing if Jaryl would be able to take enough from Brennan to keep him alive. If she couldn't …. This could very easily be Mutant X's last battle. He swallowed hard. "Even if nothing hits them, if Brennan…" he took a deep breath, trying to steady the tremor he heard in his voice, and continued, "If Brennan dies while they're joined, it will kill Jaryl, too. And because of the way their minds are linked, the feedback shock would likely take Matt out as well."

Shalimar gazed at the pair on the floor locked in silent struggle amid the gently pulsing amber glow.

"So we're really protecting three lives here," she said softly.

Jesse shook his head.

"Four."

The two women looked at him in puzzlement.

"I saw the medical scan in her file when I accessed the system," he said, "Jaryl is 11 weeks pregnant."

_Author's note: Rest assured (particularly Lisa) that I have every intention of bringing this story to a conclusion - but not yet. There are more twists to come. My best guess at this time is about 16 chapters total, although that can change. To answer another question I've had - 'Jaryl' rhymes with 'Carol'. There is no connection between her and the empath Kristoff from "The Hand of God". She has actuallyen in my head and early writings before Mutant X existed. I guess her spiritual origins are in a character from an original Star Trek episode._


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

The telekinetic wasn't with the others.

Damien Acosta was in his private quarters engaged in his usual daily workout when Jason Voss called with that disturbing bit of information. Only a few people had ever been inside his penthouse suite, and none but himself inside this inner sanctum which contained an acoustically customized meditation chamber, a lavish but fairly conventional workout room, and a high-tech interactive dojo complete with holographic and nano technology. It was in here, behind a soundproof, seamless panel whose operating mechanism could only be activated by reaching telekinetically into the wall that housed it, that he could exercise both body and mind in total secrecy. No one else knew it existed. Even the workmen who built the place didn't know about it, because Acosta had casually reached into their minds one by one and telepathically erased the knowledge. Damien Acosta liked his privacy.

Wiping the sweat from his face with the towel around his neck, he activated the door to his hidden sanctum and walked through his opulently-appointed living quarters, glancing back to close the panel behind him. A cold bottle of Perrier departed from the refrigerator in the open kitchen and sailed across the room to join him at a soft leather easy chair facing a giant stand-alone plasma computer screen. Another glance brought the sophisticated computer system off standby. He sat down and took a long pull of water, nearly draining the bottle as he considered this latest development.

One of the second floor cameras managed to record a quick image of the telekinetic rising up through the largest hole in the floor before it was ripped loose from its mooring. Though the camera itself had been destroyed, Jason Voss had been able to retrieve the footage from one of his backup systems. This unique use of telekinesis, allowing the man to evade security with the de facto power of flight, brought a nod of grudging approval from Acosta. It was not an application that had occurred to him previously, although he would incorporate it in his future workouts. Right now, though, it meant that his adversary could be anywhere in the building. This unexpected ploy raised a number of questions.

The latest intelligence was that Mutant X was still somewhat contained in the storage room, where the empath was apparently using her powers to help a seriously-injured Mulwray. The 'somewhat' came from the fact that although they were boxed in by Special Forces operatives on one side and a heavily armed group of uniformed security on another, the squad Voss sent to the second floor with tranquilizer guns weren't responding to his hail. Fox had been glimpsed up there, though, so they had likely been neutralized, providing them a possible bolt hole should they choose to use it. Voss didn't have the extra personnel – yet - to send another force to cut off that escape route, but the additional Special Forces unit should be arriving any time now. He could only hope that 'any time' meant 'in the next few minutes'. Mutant X wasn't making any overt moves to escape their foxhole; either they were unable to, or more likely everything was on hold until the empath finished her work. That could change quickly, though. The question was – why did her husband leave them at such a critical juncture? What was he up to?

He did not, however, leave them unprotected. The Special Forces team cobbled together from the survivors of the various ambushes had tried to storm the storage room, but had been stopped by a transparent barrier of telekinetic energy. The fact that the man could do this and still have enough energy and concentration to undertake a second mission was impressive and disconcerting, but it didn't answer the question. Although telekinesis relied heavily on the visual input, Acosta knew that something like the barrier could be maintained once it was set up without constant visual contact. It was, however, much more taxing to sustain it from a distance, particularly with the SF agents continuing to test it at intervals. If all he was doing was buying time for his wife, why didn't he do it from there?

They thought they had their answer when the computer system suddenly crashed. Voss, communicating by cell phone, had gone to the server room and found the server completely shorted out. A quick, unobtrusive dip into the security chief's mind with his telepathy gave Damien other details; the smell of scorched wiring, the fact that the server room door had been locked before Voss entered, and the observation that the server's outer casing was undamaged. Those facts, along with a small hole in the ceiling (probably opened to give the telekinetic visual access to the server) identified the saboteur. No doubt the objective was to ruin the data they had collected on his wife, but fortunately it had already been sent on to the Providence site. About all that had been accomplished in that regard was to deny it to the Dominion, which by itself was worth the price of the trashed server. Once that was done, though, why didn't he go back to the storage room? Damien slipped out of his subordinate's mind without Voss ever being aware of his presence to think.

Perhaps he meant to circle around and attack either of the groups keeping Mutant X boxed in. If so, he certainly was taking his time about it. Voss was leaning toward that scenario, but Acosta didn't think so. Deep in his bones he was positive that his telekinetic opposite number had another purpose in mind. To discover what that was he had Voss detail two SF agents to search the building for him, beginning with the top floor. At the same time Damien was sure that there was a vital clue he had missed; something Voss said, or perhaps something he saw on the camera feed, that held the answer to this riddle. At the moment, though, he just couldn't see it. It was maddening.

Wait. _See_ it. Maybe that was the clue. In trying to ascertain what the man was up to, Damien had forgotten an equally puzzling aspect to this affair – how he could telekinetically direct two electro clubs and create a delaying action two floors away without being seen by natural or electronic means. Lexa Pierce had stealth capabilities that could be extended to another, but she was supposedly with Kilmartin in the server room. The camera corroborated that, picking them up as they phased through that wall a few seconds later.

With a few telekinetic mouse clicks he ran the various bits of video Voss had sent him just before the server crashed in chronological order across the screen. He watched with intense interest. Nothing in the way of a clue jumped out at him at first, although there was a good deal of information on the intrusion and fighting abilities of Mutant X, something Acosta planned to incorporate when training the next batch of grafted mutants. The footage on his telekinetic counterpart was equally instructive; the man displayed a skill and subtlety in the use of his power that could only be recognized and appreciated by another telekinetic such as himself. Perhaps a duel would be somewhat amusing after all.

But that was for later. He could not allow himself to become sidetracked. He backed up the footage and scrolled through it again, finally coming to a stop on one particular bit. It showed the telekinetic near the main stairs as his wife joined him from the open chemistry labs, right at the juncture of the three ambushes. She flew into his arms, and they shared a passionate kiss just before SF Unit 4 came charging up from the basement, forcing them apart. How touching.

Damien paused the video and checked the time stamp. The timing – that was the key. At this point one of the ambushes had already begun; the second was about to, and the third, the only partially successful one by Fox and Mulwray, would launch in another few seconds. Just prior to that there were two definite instances of telekinetic usage in close sequence but from two different physical locations. The telekinetic might have been able to delay the second floor team and then meet his wife on the first floor, but he certainly couldn't have been in the southwest stairwell directing the electro clubs at the same time, and then beat everyone back to be in position for the second ambush, particularly without being seen. How had he managed it?

It came to him in an epiphany so blinding that it brought an incredulous grin to his face. Telepathy. There was no other explanation. This man was his true doppelganger, a telepath/ telekinetic. The irony was exquisite. Just as he himself had done numerous times with Jason Voss, this man must also have entered another's mind, and used that connection not only to coordinate the attacks, but also to see through another's eyes in order to direct his telekinetic power. He left the others because he was searching for a high vantage point to give himself some measure of concealment while utilizing his telepathy to cover the whole area, keeping track of all the SF operatives and watching for reinforcements he had to suspect might be coming in from the outside. All that, while maintaining an energy shield from a distance. For a moment Damien forgot to breathe, such was his astonishment. He had a rival, one with an impressive power level – and who had somehow managed to keep his existence as secret as his wife's. Remarkable.

Finally, here was a challenge worthy of him. That the stakes were so high only sweetened the pot. They would duel for the ultimate prize – the woman, and the power that could be had by the one who controlled her. Winner take all. Damien Acosta rose to his feet with the speed and grace of a predator scenting its prey, the towel falling unheeded to the floor. It was time to take a personal hand.

Their reactions to the news of Jaryl's condition were typical of each woman. Lexa's startled look was quickly stifled and stuffed back behind the stony mask she wore like armor. She immediately turned back toward the wall, ostensibly to keep tabs on the manufactured mutants, but perhaps just as much to keep from betraying any further emotion. Shalimar's response was more vocal.

"Oh my God," she whispered. No wonder Matt had been so wired when Brennan and Lexa brought him back to Sanctuary. It was bad enough that Jaryl had been captured; they all had a good idea of how Acosta would utilize her. But a baby? Memories from the high security lab at the original Naxcon sprang unbidden into her head, racks upon racks of shelves with neatly labeled jars containing the results of their twisted human experiments. Had the child been slated to end up in one of those jars? Or would it have become Dr. Harrison's prize lab rat? There was no telling what horrors that inhuman monster had planned.

Jaryl must have realized that they knew about her condition, which was why she attacked Brennan so precipitously when they came to spring her. Shalimar had wondered about that at the time, feeling instinctively that there had been something else going on that they didn't know about. Now the pieces all fell into place. She turned slowly to stare at the empath. It all made sense – except for what she was doing now. Was Jaryl out of her mind? If Jesse was right about the way her power worked, how could she possibly absorb any of Brennan's injuries into her own body without jeopardizing her baby?

But she was evidently doing just that. Although none of the outward damage, like the gash in his side, was appearing on her, it was obvious that she was utilizing her power to a high degree. Her kneeling form was unnaturally stiff; fine lines of strain had appeared on her face, and tiny beads of sweat were beginning to form on her skin. Her respiration was slowing noticeably, becoming shallow and uneven, but the amber glow never wavered.

Shalimar's feet moved of their own accord; she found herself on her knees on the other side of Brennan without having any idea of how she got there. He was unnervingly still. She would have thought that she would at least see his chest move, however unevenly as one lung sought to do the work of two, but his respiration was barely discernable through the blanket of golden energy emanating from Jaryl's hands. But maybe that was just distortion, an optical illusion brought on by the oscillating energy field. She prayed that it was.

Her gaze slid over the grey planes of Brennan's face cast into sharp angles by the energy glow, the five o'clock shadow on his strong jaw, the firm chin, the full mouth so often holding a teasing smirk now smeared with dripping blood, a well-known sign of internal hemorrhaging. That was probably what Jaryl was working on, the feral decided, getting the bleeding under control. That was the most critical thing. But could she do it? Could she stabilize his heartbeat and keep him breathing while trying to repair injuries of that magnitude?

Jesse told them that if Brennan died while they were connected, Jaryl would die too. So would her child, and quite possibly her husband. She was taking an incredible risk – maybe too much of one? Three lives against one. Was it worth it? Maybe Shalimar should intervene. She knew how Brennan would feel about this. If it had just been Jaryl herself he would have been grateful for her help, although he would have felt guilty about inflicting his pain and injuries on her, but her pregnancy changed everything. He would be adamantly against anything that would endanger the child, even at the cost of his own life. Knowing this, since he couldn't speak for himself right now, didn't that give Shalimar a moral responsibility to honor his wishes and put a stop to this?

_No, it didn't_, she told herself. Jaryl was a mature woman, powerful and accomplished. She volunteered for this; she wouldn't be doing it if she didn't think she could handle it. It wasn't as if she was taking _all_ of Brennan's injuries. She was only helping him somewhat. She wouldn't do anything that might harm her baby; besides, she probably wasn't far enough along to affect it in the first place – not that Shalimar was an authority on pregnancy. Anyway, it was Jaryl's decision to make, a decision that Matt supported. He wouldn't have agreed if it was dangerous. There was no need to interfere. Jaryl and her baby would both be fine.

_Rationalizations are beautiful things, aren't they?_ she thought to herself disgustedly._ At least be honest about it._ The choice may have been Jaryl's to make, but Shalimar wouldn't have stopped her anyway, no matter what the circumstances or how vehemently Brennan might have objected. Though she sincerely cared about Jaryl's welfare and that of her child, the truth was that she cared about Brennan more. Like Jesse, he was part of her pack, her family. She would do anything she could to keep him alive, even stand by and let a pregnant woman she just met risk two, possibly three lives trying to save him. So what did that make her? Just as bad as Harrison and Eckhart, that's what. A wave of self-loathing crashed through her, hammering her with that hard, unvarnished truth. A single bitter tear escaped to cleave a silver trail down her cheek.

Misinterpreting her action, Jesse knelt beside her and caught the tear on his fingertip.

"Hey, what's this?" he asked gently, "You're not worried, are you? You know how stubborn and bull-headed that big sparkplug is. You think he'll let a few broken bones and a collapsed lung keep him down? All he needs is a fighting chance and Jaryl will give him that. She just has to get him stabilized, and then we can take him to Lexa's doctor. He'll take care of the rest - and you just know he's gonna be a royal pain in the ass while he recuperates."

Shalimar's lips curved wryly at that. Trust Jesse to put an altruistic spin on her motives. Lexa's opinion was that he was hopelessly naïve, but Shalimar knew better than that. More than the rest of them, Jesse was an idealist; the team's moral center, the one who constantly challenged them all, himself included, to take that less traveled higher road. Shalimar often thought that if her molecular brother hadn't been a mutant he probably would have ended up joining the Peace Corps or something. Although well aware of life's darker side, he chose to believe that more often than not people would rise to the better side of their natures if given half the chance. This belief, particularly of his closest friends, made them believe it of themselves and strive to live up to it. Because of that faith, Shalimar didn't feel like disillusioning him over this so she played along, allowing the corners of her mouth to lift slightly.

"I'm sure you're right," she said. One eyebrow quirked up. "We'll probably have to tie him to his bed after the first week."

He nodded in rueful agreement. "If not sooner." He watched as her gaze strayed back to the entranced empath.

"Don't worry about her, either. She can handle this. She's capable of some amazing things."

Shalimar continued to watch the ebb and flow of amber energy, almost mesmerized by the subtly shifting patterns, though not so much so that she couldn't answer him.

"You sound pretty sure of that," she said. She wished she felt as confident. Maybe then her guilt wouldn't be twisting her stomach into tight little knots.

"I am. She once healed me."

That did make her turn back to him, her eyes wide. Jesse couldn't blame her for the surprise he saw there. He nodded, seeing the light bulb light.

"I recognized her as soon as I saw her on the feed. Jaryl is Gemini."

"Wow," she said. Talk about déjà vu. So that's why Jesse had so insistently backed Brennan in helping Matt find his wife. Memories of the time she and Brennan had found Jesse in an abandoned factory, unconscious and covered in blood, flooded back. It was only after they got him back to Sanctuary that they found he had already been healed of a near-fatal bullet wound by a mutant empath. Jesse had tried for weeks afterward to find his benefactor, but she had vanished like smoke on a breeze. "I guess now you know why she disappeared after healing you."

"Matt." He sighed, long and theatrically. "Always a bridesmaid."

Her hand went to his shoulder sympathetically. He accepted it silently, a touch of wistfulness in his clear blue eyes as he released the last lingering echoes of what might have been. Then his expression became quizzical when he noticed something glinting in her hair. Grasping the object carefully, he felt a tiny involuntary shudder as he dislodged the thumbnail-sized piece of glass from her scalp, showing it to her before tossing it aside. A frown appeared on his face. Things had been too crazy to notice before, but now he could see splotches of blood staining her hair; thin red trails all over the back of her blouse and arms. He shifted around to get a closer look at some of her other hurts. She submitted to his touch without protest, her eyes fixed on the linked pair, as Jesse probed the spots gently. His concern deepened when he realized just how much more glass was embedded in her skin.

"I can see what I'm going to be doing this evening," he said, trying to make light of the situation. She must be in a lot of pain, but Shalimar-like, was refusing to show it. "It looks like you and I have a date in the lab tonight."

"You'll have more important things to worry about than me."

Jesse gave his head a negative shake.

"Brennan will be in better hands with Lexa's doctor," he said, "Which will leave me free to concentrate on something more my speed – like picking glass out of a certain feisty feral."

"You'd be better off concentrating on how we're getting out of here," Lexa interrupted impatiently.

She had been listening to them with half an ear while she kept an eye on the Naxcon forces through a medium-sized hole in the debris. The man with the red beard was still down and out after his up-close-and-personal encounter with Matt's telekinetic shield, but there were still plenty of others out there. She had watched as those with energy powers tried attacking the barrier, only to scatter as the energy rebounded back at them. It would have been nice if the ricochets had taken a couple of them out, but no such luck. One or two were still taking careful, intermittent shots at it, trying to pierce the barrier in the general neighborhood of the doorway she carved, but for the most part they were at a standoff, gathered in little groups trying to plot strategy.

She regarded them with the cold contempt of a professional for bungling amateurs. It obviously never occurred to these imbeciles to probe for the field's dimensions, to attack simultaneously from several different points, or even to try concentrating all of their fire in one place to see if either the mix of energies or the sheer volume might be enough to disrupt the field. They just assumed that it blocked them completely, but that didn't stop them from wasting their strength on pointless sallies. If Matt was smart he probably shrank his barrier after the initial attack to save energy.

Of course, if stupidity hadn't been rampant throughout this whole operation Lexa and the rest of the team would be dead or captured by now. Take for example the numbskulls with the tranquilizer guns. If she had been running this show, she would have had them shoot first and implant the sub-dermal governors later. But no – some security guard who watched too many cop shows had to yell "Freeze!" That bit of TV theatrics had given them time to counterattack.

On the other hand, it wasn't as though the stupidity was all on Naxcon's side. There had been some gaffes from her team as well, such as going in without knowing the size and makeup of the opposition. It was a proven axiom in her profession that bad intel got more people killed than anything else. True, that oversight had been negated; striking fast and hard they had taken down a disparate number of the enemy with the very effective use of surprise and coordinated attacks. She grimaced in disgust. Then they had to go and blow it by allowing sentiment to change the mission focus when things went south. Now they were stuck, besieged on two sides, defended for who knew how long by an energy barrier, robbed of their mobility by the necessity of protecting at least one (probably two) incapacitated teammates, and outnumbered to boot. On top of all that, Acosta was probably scrambling reinforcements.

She glanced over at Jaryl, the central figure in this farce. Acosta and Harrison must have been ecstatic upon capturing the empath, but finding out that she was pregnant probably had them slobbering all over themselves at the possibilities. Jaryl must have known that. What she should have done was to get the hell out of here as soon as the opportunity presented itself. Instead, she chose to put herself and her unborn child in another kind of danger to save one of her rescuers. Some might think there was something noble about this, but to Lexa's mind it was just plain nuts. Aside from the personal danger, there was a time and a place for doing the noble thing, but the middle of a battle wasn't either. Granted, Brennan might not have survived long enough for them to reach safety, but that was a chance they should have taken. Standard Dominion doctrine was to preserve the team over the individual. But no – Lexa had to be surrounded by idealistic fools with hero complexes. 'Disable instead of destroy' indeed. Didn't they know that the only good enemy was a dead enemy? Jesse in particular was infected with that naïve nonsense about fair play and mercy, and now look where they were – up to their asses in alligators, and those suckers were surely snapping. He'd better wise up fast and accept some realistic rules of engagement or they were all toast.

That she knew of no one who would act so foolishly on her behalf was completely beside the point.

At her outburst Jesse and Shalimar left their companions on the floor and went over to where Lexa was keeping watch.

"You're right," Jesse said, "We need to be ready to move as soon as Jaryl breaks the link."

"Any idea of when that will be?"

Jesse glanced back at the empath and shook his head. "No, but it shouldn't be long now."

"So now's the time to take them out," Shalimar said. Jesse's eyes narrowed. Now that she was distracted from Brennan and the focus was back on their predicament and the enemies surrounding them, she was beginning to prowl in short, restless movements as anticipation of battle began to build anew, pushing her pain and stiffness to the periphery of her mind as her hunting instincts once more became aroused. He was familiar with this behavior from her. It was a dangerous sign.

"Just like that," Lexa snorted derisively. She was relieved to see that the feral at least had a realistic grasp on their situation, but re-enacting the Charge of the Light Brigade would only get them all killed. "In case you haven't noticed, there are seven of them out there against our three, and that's not counting the regulars out back. We need a plan."

"I agree," Jesse said, "I think we need to clear the back door first. Then we can turn around and deal with the others." He paused, a distracted look coming to his eyes. "Matt says that whatever we're going to do, we need to do it quickly."

"Fine," Shalimar said quickly, "I'll take out the guys in the back while you're deciding how you want to handle the graftees in the front." She took a step in that direction, but Jesse caught her arm.

"Whoa. There's five of them carrying automatic weapons."

"So I'll be careful." She started forward again, but Jesse held on, pulling her up short.

"'Careful' isn't in your vocabulary," he retorted, "Don't even _think_ you're doing this by yourself." This was exactly what he was afraid of. When Shalimar got antsy she also got reckless. Usually she could back it up, but 'usually' wasn't always, and when she fell short she ended up in serious trouble. They couldn't afford that now. "I'll phase through and draw their fire. Then you attack from above. Lexa, stay here and watch the others."

"Like hell!" she objected, but Jesse was adamant. An image of the stone sentinel came to him once more, only this time the surface was worn and pitted, with chunks of rock breaking loose every time one of the enhanced thugs tested the barrier. Bits of gravel rolled down the granite face like beads of sweat.

"Matt's weakening," he told her. It still felt strange, but Jesse felt like he was getting the hang of this telepathy thing, interpreting information that didn't just come in words. "If they breach his shield, your light burst is the only thing on our side that has a prayer of delaying them until we can get back." He didn't add that if the shield went down before he and Shalimar could neutralize the rear guard and return to help with the oncoming phalanx, that was pretty much the whole ball game anyway. He didn't have to. Her mouth turned down in a moue of disgust, but she didn't argue further. He saw that he had made his point, so he picked up one of the tranquilizer guns, checked the load and action, and nodded at Shalimar. She crouched, then leaped up to the next floor. Jesse started for the back wall.

"Jesse."

He glanced back. Lexa's expression was intent and serious.

"You don't have the luxury of scruples this time."

He blinked, startled as he took her meaning, before shuttering his face in flint. Wordlessly he turned back to the wall and disappeared through it.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Jesse had just barely disappeared when gunfire erupted from the other side of the wall. It sounded pretty concentrated. Lexa cast a restless glance back in that direction. Belatedly she wondered how long Jesse could stay phased, then shrugged the thought off. Shalimar must have a pretty good idea of that. No doubt she would be attacking soon, which would take the heat off Jesse. Besides, it wasn't as if Lexa could do anything about it anyway.

A loud, angry roar from among the enhanced mutants attracted her attention. She turned back to see the elemental she found unconscious after the explosion seize one of his fellows by the front of the shirt. For a moment she had hopes that she was about to witness a falling out of thieves, so to speak, but no such luck. He bellowed something that Lexa couldn't quite decipher, given that only one side of his mouth appeared to be working, but the message became clear when his very nervous comrade pointed a shaking finger at her temporary refuge.

The elemental released him and started forward, his hands clenched into fists. Tongues of flame began to form around them; little spurts of red and orange, like someone clicking a cigarette lighter on and off flickered over the skin. Coupling that with what Shalimar said, Lexa surmised that this must be the guy who blew up the chemical tanks. There was a wild, demented look to his eyes with a lot of white showing, his broken face flecked with blood and twisted with obsession and hate. An uneasy shiver rippled up her spine. She supposed it was some sort of primal warning system, yet as uncomfortable as it made her, she couldn't tear her eyes away. There was something compelling about the raw face of insanity, a sort of macabre fascination that riveted her gaze. This guy was definitely a psycho, and getting his jaw smashed hadn't helped his disposition any. That made him unpredictable, and unpredictable was always dangerous.

Murder exuded from every pore as he strode belligerently toward the shield. He stopped about ten feet away and raised his hands. Daggers of red-orange fire formed at his fingertips, then launched themselves at the barrier. Theshield became briefly visible at the impact point, but it held.

"I'm coming for you, bitch!" he shouted hoarsely through the side of his mouth, "You're dead meat, just like your boyfriend!"

_Oh, great_, Lexa thought sardonically, _he's after Shalimar_. Now she knew who rearranged his face for him. Just what they needed - a maniac with a vendetta. This guy was bent on revenge, and he probably wasn't too concerned about burning down anyone who happened to get in his way, either. If he got through she might be able to zap him through one of the holes in the wall, but that was iffy given the angles available. He would probably come through her doorway shooting. Her best bet then would be to nail him with her laser power while in stealth mode. Then all she had to do was deal with the other six that were sure to be crowding through right behind him. Piece of cake.

He lashed out again, and once more the barrier held. That it didn't come down only increased his fury, the pitch of his voice as he screamed his frustration rising almost to a shriek, driven ever higher by the stubborn barrier's refusal to fall. Again and again he fired. Rage seemed to fuel his power, the daggers were becoming bigger and wider with each subsequent attack. It seemed to Lexa that the barrier vibrated just a little longer with each impact before steadying and going back to its transparent state. She felt her muscles tightening, almost shuddering along with each successive blow. It was only a matter of time before the shield came down. Shalimar and Jesse had better hurry.

Her attention was pulled away when one of the others hollered at him; the rebounding daggers had started half a dozen small fires. Carter ignored him. His whole being was centered on breaching the barrier and getting to Shalimar so he could kill her. It probably never occurred to him that she might not even be in here, although the gunfire should have given him a clue that something was up. The same went for the rest of the crew as well. Who did those idiots think the guards were shooting at – each other? Yet none of them appeared disposed to go investigate.

Wait – she thought too soon. Now she could see two of them moving quickly and keeping low, snaking their way toward the labs on the other side of the building. It didn't take much guesswork to figure out where they were going. She brought her comlink to her lips to warn Jesse and Shalimar, but whether they heard her over the gunfire she didn't know. Neither of them answered.

The thug who shouted at Carter finally gave up trying to reason with him and turned his energies to something a bit more constructive – like trying to keep the place from going up in flames. He and a woman with spiky green hair each grabbed a fire extinguisher and started putting out the small blazes. The remaining two seemed at a loss as to what to do; they held positions behind cover, doing their best not to attract Carter's attention lest he turn his fury on them.

Watching the barrier shimmer yet again, Lexa rubbed her arms restlessly. It wouldn't be long now.

No one ever bothered to tell him anything.

Calvin Taylor, the security guard at the Naxcon gate, was grumbling to himself about that very thing. All morning long people had been scurrying around like chickens with their heads cut off; trucks and cars had streamed through his gate in a mass exodus for hours. An evacuation order had been given, they said. No one seemed to know why, or if they did, they didn't share it with him. He just locked the gates behind the last one and settled into his air conditioned plexiglass shack to wait for further word.

When further word came it wasn't at all what he expected. Four black SUVs came barreling up the drive like their tailpipes were on fire. The lead one crashed through the gate, blowing both front tires in the process, and careened sideways, taking the gate with it and clearing the way for the other three. Six guys in some kind of gray bodysuits spilled out. Calvin hit the deck, slapping the emergency alarm to alert them up at the main office, but nothing happened. The three intact vehicles kept going toward the main building.

Hard on their heels a huge red Ram pickup charged through the busted gate at even higher speed. Calvin peeked up over his desk to see it slide into a screeching Brodie spin near the disabled SUV, leaving about a pound of rubber on the pavement. Two men in ordinary street clothes jumped out, then the truck spun again, tires smoking, and took off after the other vehicles. The SUVs, seeing themselves pursued, stopped short of the building and began deploying in a professional fashion.

The battle that ensued was nothing like the security guard had ever seen. One of the plain-clothes guys, whom Taylor was sure he'd seen around here a few times, did something funny with his hands. In the next instant a miniature tornado sprouted from nowhere and barreled toward the six gray men. Calvin couldn't believe his eyes. A freaking tornado, right from his hands! His partner started throwing a seemingly endless supply of knives, but where he pulled them from Calvin couldn't fathom. Was that what they were doing up there in those hush-hush labs? He'd heard rumors, but nothing really concrete, and nothing that he really believed anyway. Until now.

Gunfire erupting from down the drive drew his attention toward the vehicles. One of the inhabitants of the pickup, a short, burly man, planted himself in the middle of the drive. His flesh seemed to sort of soften and flow like heated plastic. His body spread out, losing a little height, the malleable flesh stretching horizontally, lengthening sideways even as it diminished in depth to just a few inches. In barely a second he resembled a rectangular piece of denim-colored wall, solid enough to repel the bullets being fired by the gray men, and long enough for his three companions to take shelter behind. The trio popped up at intervals, and from their hands came an assortment of ….well, Calvin didn't really know what to call it. Maybe the one was like a black laser, but the shimmering, nearly-transparent circles looked like giant pieces of living plastic wrap, and the way the other one seemed to make everything look all distorted, like gazing into a funhouse mirror, was just plain weird.

The gray guys were holding their own, though, falling back to cover behind vehicles and trees in an efficient, disciplined manner and opening fire with automatic weapons. Calvin was surprised that only a couple of them were down. He knew for fact that one had taken a black laser full on, but he was still on his feet. His head swiveled back and forth between the two skirmishes as if he was watching a tennis match. This was like a science fiction movie, he thought, only better. It was a shame he didn't have any popcorn.

As soon as he cleared the wall Jesse saw immediately that his original plan wasn't going to work. He thought he would have the fraction of a second necessary to go from being phased to massed before the shooting started, but that wasn't the case. The five security agents guarding the back side of their prison saw the telltale shimmer of his arrival and opened up with their automatic weapons before he even got all the way through the wall. So heavy was their fire that he didn't dare try to switch forms because one or more slugs might nail him during the transition.

_Okay, so I switch to Plan B._ Still phased, Jesse snapped the tranquilizer rifle to his shoulder and reverted it and his hands to normal. Trying not to blink reflexively at the bullets zipping through his desolidified head and body, he took quick aim and fired. His target took the dart near the collarbone, sinking to his knees as the drug took effect, but still firing ineffectually for a couple more seconds.

Jesse quickly jacked another round into the chamber and selected his next target. A shot glanced off the barrel just as he fired the second time; between the tug at the rifle in his hands and his own distraction the dart went wide of his target. Another shot yanked it out of his hands entirely, splintering the stock before passing through his intangible shoulder. He dropped the ruined weapon and re-phased his hands.

With the guards concentrating their fire on the molecular they didn't see the streak of blond lightning attacking from above until it was too late. The remaining four had been bunched nicely when she crashed into them like a thunderbolt, knocking them all to the floor. The beast howled its approval at this familiar game and clawed vigorously at the cage door, creating a hole big enough to shove its shaggy head through. Rolling to her feet with catlike speed, Shalimar whirled on the first and struck with savage fury, her punch snapping the guard's head around, breaking his jaw and sending teeth flying. He hit the wall face first with a squishy thud. She leaped to follow up her attack, but her man slid unconscious to the floor, leaving a bloody streak down the side of the wall. He did not move again.

Two down. The center guard had taken the worst of Shalimar's attack and hadn't even made it back to his knees yet. The feral was engaging another. Jesse, now in normal form, stepped swiftly up to the last one. His roundhouse kick jarred the man's gun arm and sent the weapon flying, but Jesse didn't stop there. He continued his spin, using his momentum to add impetus as he lashed a backhanded fist into the guard's jaw, snapping his head around. A sharp punch to the gut followed by a hard-driven knee to the short ribs put the man on the deck, down but not completely out.

_You don't have the luxury of scruples._ Lexa's words rang in his head. The man was no longer an immediate threat, though that could change with time. He knew what Lexa would do, but he wasn't an executioner – not yet, anyway. Another kick should do it.

He had just administered it when he thought he heard a grunt, like someone getting punched in the gut, followed by another. At first he didn't realize what he was hearing because it didn't correspond to what his eyes saw, like a movie with the soundtrack out of sync. Then a single word blazed across his mind.

_**Incoming!**_ An image of a crashed gate, men in full body suits and masks piling out of four black SUVs like charcoal gray soldier ants and a big red pickup careening through them accompanied the warning. Jesse heard another grunt. The image wavered, then vanished.

"Reinforcements arriving at the front gate!" he snapped to Shalimar.

"Go start the party without me!" she panted, jerking her chin toward the storage room. She whirled to block a blow she couldn't possibly have seen coming, then reached out and locked the man's gun arm, wrenching it from his hand and fracturing his wrist in the process "I'll catch up!"

Jesse hesitated just long enough to see her launch a savage monkey kick which dropped the fourth man with a ruptured stomach before nodding once and phasing back through the wall. He gave Lexa the bad news as soon as he rematerialized.

"Reinforcements coming in!" Another image flashed quickly into his mind, this one a picture of a heavily damaged rock wall accompanied by a feeling of extreme urgency. It flickered once and disappeared. A wave of deep concern filled him. Matt must be in bad shape if he couldn't maintain the contact. His shield probably wouldn't last through the next strike.

Without breaking stride he spared a quick glance at the pair on the floor and noticed that Jaryl's energy blanket seemed to be much brighter, the color deeper and more intense. He hoped that meant she was wrapping things up. If not, he was going to have to risk separating them. Lexa met him half way.

"Where's Shalimar?" she demanded.

Jesse grabbed one of the two remaining tranquilizer guns and tossed it to her, moving toward the doorway.

"Finishing up; she'll join us as soon as she can," he said, "We've got to move now. I'll go out first and draw their fire. You stay here and start picking off as many as you can with the trank rifle."

"Jesse…."

He cut off her dismayed objection impatiently, leaving her obvious implication about his humanitarian tendencies hanging in the air. "It will save your energy, and from the number of reinforcements coming in we're probably going to need every ounce you've got. If you have to come out, go stealth first, but stick with the trank – it won't give away your position as easily as your lasers will."

He took several deep breaths, preparing himself. Through one of the larger holes he could see Carter setting himself for another blast. This one would likely shatter the barrier and possibly part of the debris wall as well. There was no telling what that would do it Matt, not to mention the possibility of debris hitting Brennan or Jaryl. Jesse couldn't let that happen. Matt trusted him to keep his wife safe. He stepped through the doorway Lexa carved and tried to call out with his mind.

_I've got it. You can drop your shield now._

He didn't know if Matt heard him; there was no response, and the place in his mind that had been receiving the telepath's thoughts felt …empty. But he couldn't worry about that now. Carter checked his blast in surprise at Jesse's sudden appearance.

"Where's your little blond slut?" he snarled.

Jesse didn't answer. This was not the way he wanted to fight this battle. Just because playing decoy worked with the guards didn't necessarily mean it would work here, but he really didn't have a whole lot of choice. They were out of time.

Judging by where he was standing Carter hadn't been concentrating his fire precisely on the opening in the wall as one might have expected. For whatever reason he was off center to the molecular's left. While Matt's shield was in place it didn't really matter where he attacked, but from the way he was angled Jesse could tell that any shot that got through the doorway could conceivably put Jaryl and Brennan in danger. He would have to hold the breach while the girls took out the bad guys. He breathed slowly and deeply, trying to saturate his lungs with oxygen like a pearl diver before a dive. This could get dicey.

The others started forward, but Carter waved them back in a manner that brooked no argument. They stopped, hovering nearby but unwilling to risk Carter's wrath by interfering. The elemental raised his hands. Jesse filled his lungs to bursting and massed out, blocking the doorway.

Lexa already had the tranquilizer rifle sighted. She fired as soon as Carter did, using the distraction to take out the green-haired woman standing in the back. She got another one before they realized that they were under sniper attack and dove for cover. Those with energy powers popped out to fire quickly at where they thought she was, then ducked back down. Lexa moved from hole to hole, changing height and direction randomly as she sought to keep them pinned down, but generally keeping to her side of the room. The graftees helped her cause – sort of - by adding new holes for her to shoot through; others closed as debris shifted downward. She even tagged Red Beard while he laid there, just in case he should have the temerity to regain consciousness.

Carter ignored what was happening around him, sneering wolfishly in triumph when he saw the daggers bouncing off Jesse instead of the energy shield he had been pounding. All that stood between him and his revenge now was one puny guy who had powers like that wimp, Malcolm Denton. This wouldn't be any problem. He and Denton had butted heads a couple of times, but Carter knew that all he had to do was wait a minute or so for Denton to breathe, and then nail him. This guy wasn't even as big as Denton, and certainly not as big as he himself was. His chest swelled as he thought of how he close he was to his goal; how he would make the bitch suffer once he got past this petty obstacle.

His first impulse was to grind the smaller man into powder, but insane though he was, Carter wasn't stupid. He needed to be in control of the situation when the bitch did show up, and the best way to do that was to be holding her partner with a dagger to his throat – after making sure he couldn't spoil things by pulling one of his density-altering tricks. All Carter had to do was to wait for the Denton clone to breathe; the longer he waited, the weaker he would be when he did return to normal. After that – well, Carter was sure a few screams would bring his prey out of hiding.

Jesse shifted sideways unobtrusively between blasts, one tiny bit at a time. His theory was that most people whose attention was so fixed on a given point would unconsciously shift as well. The idea was to gently nudge Carter to line up more squarely with the doorway, to better protect Brennan and Jaryl should any of Carter's shots get by him. It seemed to be working. The elemental realigned himself without ever being aware of doing it. He seemed to be too busy calling out Shalimar. Jesse allowed himself a small mental shake of his head. Moron. He had no idea what he was asking for.

"The longer I have to wait, the more he bleeds!" Carter called, "I'll gut him like a fish!"

He bounced another volley off the molecular's massed body. Jesse grimaced with the impact, but kept his concentration focused on breath control. Carter was only flinging a handful at a time now, but whether he was running out of juice or simply saving his energy Jesse didn't know, and frankly it didn't really matter. Carter was allowing him no respite, and Jesse knew he couldn't hold out much longer. It was evident that Carter knew it too.

_I sure could use you right now, Sparky!_ Jesse thought. Another manufactured mutant fell to Lexa's sharpshooting. The other two continued their pop-out-and-fire attack, keeping her busy and gouging new holes in the debris wall.

"He's got to breathe sometime," Carter rasped loudly from the undamaged side of his mouth, "Come out here, bitch, or I'll cut his heart out right now!"

He was enjoying himself now, flinging his daggers one at a time now, toying with his prey while waiting for the betraying ripple. Jesse's lungs were really straining now, spots beginning to dance before his eyes. Never had he pushed his limits so far. But he couldn't quit. His friends needed his protection. _Shalimar, where are you? _Another dagger bounced off his forehead.

Carter started increasing the flow of daggers again, impatient with Jesse's refusal to fall or revert. He screamed again to the world at large.

"Come out here, bitch!"

"Be careful what you wish for," said a low, silky voice.

Carter looked up at the source of the sound but it was no longer there. Shalimar leaped from the second floor in a twisting flip that brought her crashing down on top of him before he could bring his hands around. The two daggers he was able to get off went well wide of their mark. With the pressure off, Jesse reverted and collapsed to his hands and knees, wheezing hard as he sucked air into his starved lungs.

Shalimar scored with a kick to the chest, then ducked the wild swing of a meaty fist. She responded with a vicious backhand that sent blood spurting from his nose. Carter reeled away, putting distance between them. He hurled a handful of fire right at her face. She spun away, smelling her own singed hair as she dodged with millimeters to spare. Carter fired again; she cartwheeled through a pair of barrages that left her miraculously unscathed.

"Dance, bitch, dance!" Carter screamed, streaks of red shooting through the stark whiteness of eyes huge and blazing with madness and inchoate rage, "Dance until I kill you!"

Licks of orange flame flew after their target like heat-seeking missiles, following the lithe blond feral through impossible pirouettes, leaps and rolls. Like long fingers they sought to catch her in their fiery grasp, but she eluded them with a feline grace that looked as effortless as it was beautiful. She landed in a three-point crouch less than seven feet away.

"Now dance to _my_ tune!" she snarled. Her hand whipped up, flinging a fistful of dirt and grit full into his face. Carter yelled in surprise and fury, backing away as he tried to clear his eyes with one hand while blindly spattering shards of defensive fire with the other. She leaped over them, coming down just to his side, seized his arm and wrenched sharply. It gave with a resounding _crack_.

He roared in agony. Shalimar grabbed his greasy hair and slammed his head into the wall, sending bloody froth from near his mouth flying. He tried to grapple her with his good hand, but she grabbed his flailing fist in her own. Fire like the pits of hell blazed in her eyes, totally at odds with the ice-cold finality in her voice.

"You're a dead man."

His elemental power was no more than sparks now; he couldn't concentrate enough to wield it with any chance of effectiveness even if he had the juice, which he didn't. He had been spraying it about too indiscriminately. She brushed aside his feeble attempts to protect himself with ridiculous ease, punishing him at will with fist and foot, turning his face to raw, bleeding hamburger. It felt good. Really, really good. A flying kick fractured ribs and sent him reeling back against the wall. She closed the distance with a tiger's pounce, moving in for the kill.

There was terror in his eyes when her left hand seized him by the throat and dragged him upright against the stone wall. He made a choking sound which might have been a plea for mercy, but Shalimar didn't hear him. All she could hear was the harsh rattle of air trying to squeeze into Brennan's collapsed lung, the sight of his blood spreading across his side swamping her vision. She drew back her open hand, her fingers curling into hard, rigid talons. She could smell his fear. It zinged through her blood like white lightning, flooding her with a euphoric anticipation.

"Shalimar, no!" Jesse shouted from far, far away. Shalimar never heard him. The beast filled her ears with a thunderous, triumphant roar as it erupted from its cage, huge, powerful and finally free.

"For Brennan," she whispered.

Crimson spurted from Carter's belly as she struck, bursting through skin, flesh, and the abdominal aorta, splashing against her stomach. Carter's eyes grew wide with a horror so great it blotted out the pain. They fixed on hers as she released the hold on his throat and stepped back a pace to watch him die. His knees buckled, his last breath nothing but a faint, ghastly _uurrkk_. In a surreal sort of slow motion he slid to the floor, dead before he ever got there. Shalimar stared at him dispassionately for a couple of seconds, then she leaned down and contemptuously wiped her bloody hand on the back of his shirt.

"Shalimar!"

At Jesse's shocked cry Shalimar whirled, hackles bristling, her eyes still flashing with predatory fire.

"Don't lecture me, Jess!" she snapped.

Jesse stared at her. He knew she had killed before; probably even killed today in the heat of battle and being so outnumbered, but he had never seen her just out-and-out execute someone. Of course he was shocked. It went against everything he believed in. On the other hand, their world was not one that could be divided into black and white. Shalimar was a feral. It was an integral part of her nature to protect her pack. Carter had tried to kill her; had critically injured Brennan. He was also insane, and to Shalimar's mind too dangerous to leave alive. She did what she felt she had to do. Jesse couldn't condemn her for being who she was. His expression softened. One eyebrow lifted in a self-deprecating manner, conveying a wordless acknowledgement. _My problem – I'll deal with it. _Shalimar's aggressive posture also began to ease. She nodded fractionally, accepting his olive branch.

Lexa strolled up after double-checking the four grafted mutants she had sent into dreamland, her tranquilizer rifle resting against her shoulder. She tossed an unconcerned glance at the dead thug, then shrugged and turned away, not a bit bothered by her teammate's action.

"You cut it a little close," she said to the feral, "Did you have trouble with the other two?"

Shalimar gave her a questioning look.

"What 'other two'?"

Now it was Lexa's turn to look puzzled.

"The two that left when they heard the gunshots. They didn't circle around by you?"

Shalimar shook her head. Jesse looked puzzled as well. Then understanding gave way to consternation.

"Oh man - they went looking for Matt."

He tried to call out a warning with his mind, but heard no response. Had they found him? And if they did, and he was down or captured, what would that mean for Jaryl?

Jesse started back for the storage room at a run, the two women a couple of steps behind. Then he made it through the doorway and froze.

Jaryl's energy blanket was gone. She was lying crumpled beside Brennan's body, apparently unconscious, and even from that distance he could discern the vivid crimson stain spreading across her lemon yellow shirt.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Jesse's heart leapt into his throat. He dashed across the room, the others sprinting in his wake. Was she hit? Dead? Is that why Matt didn't respond? Or had something happened to him and taken her out as well? What about Brennan? Was he alive?

They darted across the chamber, Lexa hanging back a bit just in case. Shalimar flung herself on Brennan and plastered her ear to his broad chest.

"She did it!" she exclaimed after a few seconds, "I can hear his heartbeat. It's stable… it's strong." There was awe in her voice, as if she hadn't quite dared to believe until this very moment that this remarkable restoration of life was even possible. Her hands slid across his body, probing. Where just a short time ago his chest was sunken and deformed, now hard flesh stretched firm and solid over a rebuilt rib cage. He felt so …._normal_. What a simple, wonderful word that was. She held him, feeling the kiss of moving air as he exhaled riffling her hair and the pressure against her hand of air filling a re-expanded lung. It was a miraculous feeling, one she would never forget.

"He's breathing. Respirations are full and even."

As reassured as Jesse was to hear that, still he felt as if his heart was clamped in a vise. The one thing Matt had asked of him - to keep his wife safe – and he had failed. He knelt beside the still body of the empath and pressed his fingers to the slim column of her throat. He should have felt relief at the throb they detected, but it was thready and much too weak. His other hand was placed against her ribs. She was breathing, but barely, and almost entirely on one side. Her burgundy hair was slicked with sweat, her skin cool and clammy. Thin lines of scarlet blazed trails from both nostrils across her pallid face.

Jesse thought he would be able to detect something, some sign of her power working on her injuries, but there was nothing. Could she heal herself if she was unconscious? And if she couldn't … _Don't go there! _he commanded himself.He leaned close, cupping her face in one hand, stroking her cheek with his thumb, wondering if she could feel his touch, even subconsciously; wondering if it might help bring her around. Then he saw her eyelids flutter. Feeling just the tiniest thawing of the iceberg in his stomach, he tried to conjure up something vaguely resembling a smile.

"Hey there, cutie," he murmured.

Her eyes opened fractionally, the corners of her mouth lifting just a little. Her lips moved like she was forming words, but no sound came out. She tried again, and this time they emerged in a weak gasp.

"You …remember."

"As if I'd ever forget our date."

A couple of quick glances showed that she had done much more than merely absorb enough of Brennan's injuries to get him out of danger. He could see her leg bone jutting against her jeans leg, and with her jacket flopped open could see blood spreading slowly along a deep dent in her left side. More stained her sleeve in a horizontal line across her left arm, and there were faint streaks of crimson contrasting the burgundy strands near her left ear. The iceberg in his stomach grew to glacier proportions.

"You took it all, didn't you?" he said softly.

Shalimar looked up quickly. She hadn't gone beyond the simple rapture of feeling Brennan's vital signs pulsing once more in a natural rhythm. It hadn't occurred to her until Jesse spoke that Jaryl had done anything more than stabilize him. Now her hands went to the hem of his shirt; she lifted it and pulled Jesse's sodden, bloody handkerchief away from the gash in his side.

It was gone. So was the cut on his arm.

Slowly Jaryl's eyes lifted to Jesse's. The brilliant, glowing emerald green orbs had dulled to the color of wet seaweed, and they were full of pain.

"Had to."

She coughed, a few flecks of blood landing on her chin. Jesse wiped them away tenderly with his thumb. It didn't seem like so long ago when their positions had been reversed, and she had cared for him in a similar manner. A very faint, ironic curve to her mouth showed him that she was remembering the same thing.

"Rest now," he said gently, "I'll get you out of here." He shifted, preparing to gather her in his arms.

"No."

Jesse halted, baffled. "What?"

The empath wheezed, trying to pull air into her one working lung. It sounded like she was attempting to suck a walnut through a straw.

"Not…ready…yet," she whispered hoarsely, "He is. Take…him. Go. I'll…..follow…..soon."

"Like hell I'm leaving you here!" Jesse growled, but he made no move to pick her up again.

Jaryl closed her eyes briefly, marshalling her strength. "I just….need….a few….. minutes." A glint of humor flashed across her face. "T'pull…myself…..to…gether."

Jesse rapidly considered their situation and possible options. Reinforcements were coming in; he had no idea of how many or where they were, but although he was no longer receiving from the telepath, the biting urgency in his last message lingered in his mind. They had to get out of there fast. The problem was that, just judging by what he knew of the injuries she had taken from Brennan, moving Jaryl in her condition might well be fatal. And where was Matt? Jesse had no sense of him in his thoughts, and there was no answer to his mental call. Jaryl could probably answer the question, but at this moment Jesse didn't want her to strain to find him, or to upset her until he was in a position to offer Matt tangible help if he needed it. In the meantime they needed to get Brennan and Jaryl to the Helix. He formulated his plan in the blink of an eye.

"All right," he said, "I'll take Brennan back to the Helix. You two stay with Jaryl until she can be moved. Shal, can you carry her?"

Shalimar nodded. Jesse could see that she was stiffening up and no doubt hurting, but she was still formidable. Lexa also looked pretty wrung out, the long battle taking a visible toll. He imagined that he didn't look much better to them. Originally he planned to have the feral carry Brennan, as she was physically stronger than he, but that would leave Lexa alone with Jaryl, since he would still have to be there to phase the wall. While the tall brunette's stealth capabilities were eminently suited to keeping them both safe in this kind of situation, Jesse wasn't sure Lexa had the strength to keep them both invisible for the necessary length of time. This was where the new troops would probably come, so having Shalimar here would be the smarter division of their current strength.

"Good," he said, "As soon as she's ready, take Jaryl to that supply room where we came in. I'll get Brennan settled and meet you there."

"What about Matt?" Shalimar asked him. Jesse acknowledged her concern with a grim nod, the muscles of his jaw tightening.

"One thing at a time."

He rose, stepped over Brennan's body and knelt again.

"Give me a hand," he said to Shalimar, taking his arm. Shalimar hauled Brennan to a sitting position, draping him over Jesse's shoulders as he braced himself, preparing himself for a fireman's carry.

"Ready?"

He hyperventilated for a few breaths. Shalimar got her arms around Brennan's long legs.

"Go!"

They lifted together, climbing to their feet. Jesse grunted, his lower back protesting the sudden demand on it.

"Aaaugh, he weighs a ton!"

Shalimar couldn't quite stifle a superior little smirk at that, although truthfully she didn't try very hard. Still, she dutifully hoisted a little higher, helping Jesse adjust Brennan's dead weight into a more comfortable and balanced position. He got a firm grip around an arm and a leg and started off, moving as quickly as he could. Shalimar called after him.

"Hey – don't hesitate to holler if you need help."

He answered with a little waggle of his hand, saving his breath for more important usage. At the back wall she saw the shimmer as he phased the two of them, then stepped through the wall and was gone.

Now it was a waiting game. Lexa stared down at Jaryl. Blood was still creeping incrementally across her shirt, an invading line of scarlet inexorably swallowing the cheerful yellow fabric. Jaryl must be focusing on something more critical internally, Lexa decided. Maybe more than one something. But this was her mutation. The realization that she had probably been doing this kind of thing for years was something that Lexa was having a hard time fathoming. She couldn't imagine bearing the cost of such a power.

"How long do you think we can wait?" she asked her blond teammate. Not 'how long will it take for her to heal enough to move'. That would probably take hours, and what they had was more like minutes – damn few of them at that. Lexa knew they would have to take her soon, ready or not. The reality was that the odds of getting Jaryl back to the Helix alive were slim. The woman looked like she'd been through a trash compactor.

Shalimar didn't answer the question. Her head tilted slightly, her senses focused outward. No longer distracted by Brennan or caught up in a battle, her feral hearing was picking up some disturbing sounds.

"What is it?" Lexa asked apprehensively. She was afraid she already knew the answer; the only question was how close they were.

"I hear fighting. Gunfire." Her face took on puzzled expression. "It's not as close as it should be."

"Jesse?"

Shalimar shook her head. "Wrong direction." She listened a little more, then moved toward the doorway. "Stay with Jaryl. I'll be right back."

Lexa knelt down beside the empath so that she was within immediate reach if she needed to take them both into stealth mode. Shalimar had already slipped through the doorway like a wraith.

Stepping around and over the tranquilized bodies of the graftees Lexa had put down, Shalimar made her way through battle debris to the bank of windows lining the wall from about waist high to the ceiling, taking care to stay in the shadow of a support pillar next to a cubicle wall. Spread out along the drive in front of the building she saw a new team of manufactured mutants battling with a swarm of masked guys in gray body suits carrying AK-47s. There were six of them using mostly elemental and molecular powers, but there was something odd going on. Shalimar saw one suited man get hit full on with a black energy beam of some sort, but the man didn't go down. Shalimar couldn't tell if there was an inherent weakness in the blast or if the suit was some kind of energy-proof body armor, but whatever was going on, it wasn't good for the mutant. Though staggered, the suited man held onto his weapon, and when the mutant let up on the blast, the suited man shot him.

The battle raged fiercely. A few of grays were down, but there was still more than a dozen left, and they were pressing the grafted men hard. Now there were three of them on the ground amid pools of blood. Shalimar watched with a growing feeling of dread. Who the hell were the gray guys? They couldn't be Acosta's people, as they were killing his special agents. Whoever they were, they were taking no prisoners; she saw another mutant fall wounded, and a gray guy ran up and shot him in the head.

Sickened by the sight, Shalimar started to turn away when she heard someone cry out from the direction of the storage room. In the next second Lexa called out frantically.

"Shalimar!"

The blond tigress dashed back to where she left the others, ready for battle. What she found was the empath curled into a very tight, very rigid fetal position, her arms hugging her belly, her face contorted and bathed in a hard sweat. Lexa was on her knees beside her, totally at a loss as to what to do.

"What happened?" Shalimar demanded, joining her. Lexa shook her head.

"I don't know. She said 'he's coming', and that we needed to go now. She wanted me to help her get to her feet. I slipped my arm under her shoulders and got her as far as sitting up when she screamed and collapsed."

They looked at each other, and saw that they were both thinking the same awful thing. Neither wanted to voice the thought, though, so Shalimar sidestepped it with a different question.

"Who's coming?"

"I don't know."

Shalimar's mind raced furiously. From what she saw the gray men would be storming the building any minute, and now there was this mysterious 'he' coming. It was definitely time to bug out. But could Jaryl stand the trip? Her eyes were closed and she was breathing rapidly in short, harsh gasps, though some of the rigidity was beginning to recede. Was that enough? Shalimar's eyes narrowed, a stopwatch keeping count in her head on how much time they had left. There really wasn't any other option. She leaned forward and gathered the empath into her arms.

"You know moving her could kill her." Lexa's statement was of fact, not censure. She wasn't disputing the action, she just wanted to make sure Shalimar was prepared for the probable outcome.

"I don't see where we have much choice," the other replied, "I'm sure as hell not going to leave her for those sadistic bastards."

"Yes." The word came out in a barely audible whisper. Jaryl's eyes opened, agonized and pleading, and fixed on Shalimar.

"Go. Fast. _Now!_"

Shalimar could feel the urgency and dread rising from her in waves with every breath, so she wasted no more time. She lifted the critically injured woman as carefully as she could and led the way from the storage room. With Lexa acting as rear guard, they hurried down the corridor, heading for the center of the building. Lexa started to push on the first set of double doors, then stopped.

"What?" Shalimar asked.

A blurring of light waves was her answer as Lexa disappeared. Shalimar nodded approvingly.

"Good thinking."

The doors opened and stayed that way as the feral eased through with her burden.

Jesse got back to the Helix without incident. He lowered Brennan into the seat behind the pilot's chair, then straightened and groaned, both hands going to the small of his back. He could feel the muscles there tightening already, little claws digging into nerve clusters. His hands ached as well; they were scraped up and red, the knuckles swollen. There was definitely going to be a run on painkillers around Sanctuary tonight, he thought ruefully; hot baths or ice as the case may be, ibuprofen or something stronger, maybe a couple of good, stiff shots of the vintage brandy that he had stashed in the wine cellar. He might even share.

The Double Helix's control panel chimed a warning. Jesse leaned over and punched a button. He heard the pop-pop-pop of automated gunfire.

"What the hell?"

He couldn't get an actual camera view of what was going on because the Helix was sitting cloaked inside a fenced enclosure. The sensors, however, were showing a significant number of people firing weapons, and a few discharges of energy of unknown types. Those must be the reinforcements Matt warned him about, but who were the clowns with the guns? There was obviously another player involved here. Jesse cursed in fluent Italian. The only good thing about this was that they were fighting each other, and doing so outside. That gave him a little time.

He hurried back to the Helix's bulkhead storage lockers and popped open the largest one. He pulled two blankets out, started to close it, then stopped and extracted a third. Then he grabbed the first aid kit from the top bin, tossed it and two of the blankets on the opposite chair. The third he shook out and covered Brennan with it, then buckled him securely into the seat with the three-point harness that was standard on all the chairs but rarely used. That accomplished, he checked the sensors once more to make sure the battle hadn't started moving in his direction, then hot-footed it down the ramp.

Flat on his belly and gun in hand, Calvin Taylor peered out from under his desk through the bottom corner of the guard shack's plexiglass door. It wasn't looking too good for the home team. Most of the special security agents were dead. Whoever these guys in gray were, they weren't leaving survivors. Several of them were already heading for the main entrance. Six of them were concentrating gunfire on the sole remaining obstacle, the human wall. It didn't look like the poor guy would last much longer. Taylor knew that he would probably be next. It was too late for him to sneak out; there was no cover around, and he'd be spotted and cut down before he got ten feet. His only chance was to continue laying low and hope that they would think that he had already gotten out of the shack. He wasn't banking on it, though.

Just as the human wall collapsed a sleek black limo cruised through the crashed gate and came to a stop near the abandoned pickup. Taylor recognized it and felt a sick certainty swell in his gut. He could almost happening before it actually did; see the gray men turning at the unexpected arrival of the new CEO, converge on the limo and blast it and its occupants into oblivion.

That wasn't remotely what happened.

Looking more like a professional athlete in his sharp black-gold and white designer workout attire than a corporate CEO, Damien Acosta stepped out of the back of the limo with a supremely confident air. He walked to the front of the vehicle, his even, white teeth flashing in an anticipatory grin. Three of the gray-suited intruders swung their weapons around and opened fire. Watching from his vantage point, Calvin Taylor sucked in a horrified, impotent breath, expecting to see Acosta's body jerk with multiple bullet strikes and fall to the ground.

Nothing happened.

Acosta leaned back casually against the limo's hood, still smiling. He crooked his finger in a beckoning gesture. The three still firing were joined by ten more, all converging on the limo. Six others who had been about to enter the building turned and ran to join them. Calvin squinted, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. The bullets looked like they were bouncing off an invisible barrier surrounding the sleek black car; he could actually see the shells changing direction, flipping back from whatever-it-was. He rubbed his eyes and looked again.

Suddenly all the guns jerked themselves from their owners' hands, leaping into the air. They flew swiftly across the driveway to come lightly to rest at Acosta's feet like a pack of deadly metal hounds. Startled but undeterred, the group of men rushed the executive in a body, seeking to overwhelm him by numbers.

Acosta straightened lazily and raised his hands. The men were all lifted off their running feet, rising several meters above the ground. One by one their bodies stiffened, freezing into an unnatural immobility as if squeezed by an invisible hand. They levitated forward, forming a line in midair as they were brought before the master of Naxcon.

Acosta looked up at them appraisingly. At a slight gesture the squad leader was brought forward. One of the fallen guns also rose, and beneath his mask the squad leader blanched, his body tensing in anticipation of bullets ripping through it. The weapon, though, seemed to have other ideas. Before his eyes it began to disassemble itself, the barrel shearing vertically into four neat strips of metal. Two of the strips fastened themselves around his wrists. The other two followed him to the limo. Invisible hands seized him, dragging his arms apart. The metal strips swooped in. Before he knew what was going on he found himself spread-eagled and handcuffed to the front bumper. The rest of the gun fell to the ground.

"Wait here," Acosta said, as if the man had any choice in the matter. He took a couple of steps forward, then seemed to remember the men bobbing gently in the air before him.

"Oh yes – I think we can dispense with their company."

He pointed at the first man in line. There was a twist to his head and light popping sound as his neck was snapped like a piece of kindling. Acosta released the body to let it crash to the ground like it was no more than a sack of potatoes. With ruthless efficiency he went down the line one by one, treating each of the eighteen horrified men in the same fashion. Still smiling, he started across the drive to the main entrance. As he did so he reached out with his mind to his security chief, Jason Voss.

Shalimar had to do a bit of maneuvering as she carried Jaryl through the center atrium. The unconscious bodies of six of Naxcon's altered thugs lay strewn here and there, mute evidence of the success of Matt and Jaryl's portion of the tripartite ambush. One of the six had been draped artistically over the railing of the ornate stairway connecting the three levels. Shalimar raised an amused eyebrow. She would bet heavily that Jaryl was responsible for that bit of whimsy.

"Looks like you two had some fun," she murmured to the woman in her arms.

Jaryl managed a tiny but eminently satisfied smile. Then she stiffened abruptly, her eyes flying open.

"He's here. _Run!_"

Shalimar halted, bewildered, and looked around but saw no one else. Lexa, who was flanking them to the right, glanced out the glass-fronted vestibule. She saw the pile of bodies and the tall black man striding purposefully up the driveway toward the front door.

"Acosta!"

Shalimar felt a shiver of fear race up her spine. She could handle anything but fire or a meglo-maniacal telepath. The fire was a feral thing, hard-wired into her genes, but the idea of another telepath sinking his claws into her mind and spirit sent her pulse into panic mode. She fancied she could feel him even now, worming his way into her thoughts. It would be like Gabriel Ashlocke all over again. Her feet moved her several steps toward the double doors guarding the east wing before she was even aware of it. Suddenly their west side twins burst open, making her whirl around.

Jason Voss charged through and dashed to a position behind a support pillar. There was a 9 millimeter automatic in his hand, and it was pointed unwaveringly at her.

"That's my property you're running off with," he said evenly. Something in his voice, perhaps the inflection or maybe the flavor of a barely discernable accent, didn't seem to match the man. She had an uneasy feeling she knew why.

"She isn't your property."

The barrel of the gun lifted slightly to the center of her forehead.

"Put her down – now."

Shalimar was fairly sure he wouldn't really shoot her. Unless he was very good, there was a chance that he could hit Jaryl, and she didn't think he'd take that risk with his boss's prize. The more likely scenario was that he was holding them until Acosta arrived. Shalimar knew what would happen then, and felt determination surge up her spine. There was no way she was going to go through that again with another telepath. Fortunately, she wouldn't have to. Her feral vision had been tracking Lexa sliding sideways to get a clear shot. To keep Voss' attention on her she started backing slowly toward the doors.

"I don't think so."

The words were barely out of her mouth when Lexa rematerialized in a burst of light. Voss swung his gun around, but he was too slow. Lexa fired first. The blast caught the security chief full in the chest, drilling him right through the heart. Not even waiting for his corpse to hit the ground, Lexa spun back toward Shalimar, automatically glancing out the front as she did so.

Acosta was down on one knee, as if he had been hit with some kind of shock. Lexa could only speculate on the cause, but she wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. It was doubtful that the reprieve would last long.

The doors were still tied off with the cord wound around them, and at least two of the hinges were partially sprung. Lexa powered up two fingers, preparing to slice through the cord. The door began to shimmer. Jesse appeared an instant later.

Too antsy to wait in the supply room for more than a few seconds, he had decided to go meet them. Then he heard the unmistakable sound of Lexa's laser bolt, and his jog became a flat-out sprint that took him right through the doors in his own inimitable fashion. It took him through Lexa as well.

"Hey!" she exclaimed, unnerved not so much by his sudden appearance as the weird sensation of his intangible body passing through hers.

"Sorry." He glanced around, looking for possible threats, and saw the security chief's body. His anxiety level lowered significantly.

Lexa's didn't. "You'll be a lot sorrier if we don't get out of here."

She pointed. Damien Acosta had gotten to his feet. He still appeared to be dazed, but it was clear that he was shaking it off rapidly. His head raised, and his eyes fixed on them. He started forward again, his speed increasing with every step.

The same succinct four-letter word burst from all three of them simultaneously and with equal depth of feeling. Jesse put his hand on the door and phased it. Shalimar and Lexa wasted no time in stepping through. Jesse was right behind them, urging them on.

"Jaryl, do you know where Matt is?" he asked as they started down the corridor.

The injured woman tried to draw enough breath to answer.

"Roof."

Jesse felt some of the tension drain from his body. Finally, they got a break. Not only was Matt alive, but he couldn't have picked a better spot to be in, other than with them. They might actually pull this off after all.

"Tell him to stay there - we'll pick him up in the Helix."

There was no time or reason to go all the way back to the supply room. They hustled straight down the hall to the outside wall. Once more Jesse's power reached out, creating his own unique exit. Behind them the double doors burst open explosively.

The girls were already on the other side. Jesse started to follow.

"Kilmartin!"

The voice was compelling, commanding. Jesse found his head turning by sheer reflex toward the tall man striding imperiously toward him.

**Don't make eye contact!**

At the same time he felt something give his head a push toward the phased wall. Jesse took the hint and quickly disappeared into the brick. Emerging on the other side, he saw Shalimar well ahead of him, loping along with her burden as fast as she dared. Lexa was beyond her, nearing the framework housing the Helix. Jesse broke into a run to catch up.

Matt's sudden return to his head had both startled and concerned him. Jesse had been anxious about him since he had that last flash of the stone wall crumbling. The subsequent silence had been worrisome. On top of that, there were those two goons that had left to go looking for him. Did they find him? Perhaps Matt had just cut the contact so he could deal with that pair. And maybe it was his imagination, but the abrupt warning that just sounded in his head hadn't seemed nearly as loud as the previous contacts. In fact, it sounded almost feeble. Jesse started getting worried all over again. He called out with his mind.

_Matt, are you all right?_

He got no response.

Damien Acosta's frustration at having his prey escape through the wall quickly gave way to pleased anticipation. He had heard the other telepath's warning to Kilmartin, felt the quick puff of energy that kept him from getting a telekinetic hold on the molecular. That meant the man was still around, and not with the others. They would have to delay their departure long enough to meet up. With a little luck he could still capture all of them.

Damien stretched out with his mind, searching. The other telepath was severely weakened; he sensed that from the anemic squirt of energy that had distracted him just long enough for Kilmartin to escape. He also heard Kilmartin's call, but the telepath was smart enough not to answer. He must have guessed that Damien might be able to trace the connection back to him.

But where was he? Damien retraced his steps and moved swiftly and stealthily up the center staircase, all of his senses at full alert. It was obvious that the man's ultimate goal was the roof; that was the only escape route available. He might be up there even now, but it was equally likely that he could be on the top floor, saving energy by remaining that much closer to his comrades, yet still with a viable vantage point. Damien also remembered the video of the operative being seized by the back of his shirt. The angle clearly showed the operative being pulled from behind. None of the Mutant X team had been in a position to see that, to be used as a visual guide to the man's telekinesis. He had to have been on this floor.

At the top of the stairs Damien stepped over the unconscious bodies of two of his operatives and paused, listening with more than his ears. He heard nothing but the faint whine of the mutants' airship as the engines powered up. So - his doppelganger still had enough energy to shield his thoughts. That left Damien with two choices: he could search the east wing, denying his rival access to the roof, or he could go up there directly and wait for him. He was fairly sure that the man had to still be on this floor; as weak as he undoubtedly was, he had to be directly above Kilmartin to be able to offer the assistance he had. The advantage of catching him down here was that Damien could take him without Mutant X interfering at the wrong time. He just had to find him first.

A glance and a pulse of telekinetic power jammed the north side doors closed. There was no way the man would be able to get through them now without Damien hearing him. Moving with the grace of a born predator, Damien glided to the south side doors. Projecting an energy shield before him, he warily pulled open the near door.

Lexa already had the engines fired up when Jesse bolted up the Helix's ramp, Shalimar on his heels. He flung himself into the pilot's chair. Behind him, Shalimar eased Jaryl's nearly limp body into the fifth seat behind Brennan. Jesse glanced over his shoulder.

"Ready?"

"Go."

Jesse's hands gripped the controls, drawing back on the throttle with an even pull. With Shalimar kneeling in the aisle bracing Jaryl, the Helix rose gracefully from the earth. Lexa killed the alarm warning that the rear hatch was still open.

Jaryl's eyes fluttered. She whispered something Shalimar had to lean close to catch. The feral looked back over her shoulder.

"West side of the building," she said to Jesse.

Obligingly the molecular carefully guided the ship in that direction. Lexa left the copilot's chair and came up beside Shalimar. She snagged a blanket from the opposite seat and unfolded it. Shalimar took it and tucked it around Jaryl. She glanced up at Lexa.

"There are some gauze packs in the first aid kit."

Lexa quickly bent to the task. She unzipped the kit, ripped open a pair of gauze squares and pressed them into the feral's hand. Still bracing her with one arm, Shalimar dabbed at the blood still draining from Jaryl's nose, only now it was joined by a trickle leaking out the corner of her mouth. It was ridiculous, this small gesture in light of the magnitude of the injuries. Shalimar was aware that she was merely acting on her own need to do something, anything, in order to assuage her own helplessness, however slightly. The truth was that there really wasn't anything she could do.

Jaryl's skin tone was corpse grey. Her body had slowly curled once more in the seat, her arm drawn across her belly, her left leg dangling. Shalimar could see little drips of blood soaking into the top of her sock. She wondered if she should try to splint the fractures, but she had the awful feeling that it wouldn't make a bit of difference. Jaryl's time was too short.

Why wasn't she healing herself? Maybe she couldn't. Maybe the injuries were just too numerous and severe. As soon as they gotten through the outside wall Jaryl insisted that Shalimar run, and never mind the consequences. Shalimar reluctantly complied, and had done her best to minimize the jouncing, but she had no doubt that the trip had exacerbated the damage, perhaps fatally. Most people would have passed out immediately, but thoughJaryl's eyes were closed, the intense pain etched on her face told Shalimar that she was at least semi-conscious. She suspected that the empath was focusing her remaining strength in hanging on until she could be reunited with her husband one last time. The thought made her heart ache within her.

Skimming the top of the complex Jesse saw a lone figure on the roof lurch clear of what looked like a metal shed of some sort.

"There he is."

As he came around Jesse saw that with the number of obstructions on that end of the roof, space to land the Helix was going to be very tight. The only spot that looked like it might be big enough would have the right wing extending completely over the edge. It was either that or risk clipping the other wing on a big industrial A/C unit. This was going to take some very delicate maneuvering. He grimaced. That spot was looking smaller by the second, and unfortunately their best pilot was in the seat behind him, unconscious.

**Just bring it in close and open the hatch!**

Jesse slowed his forward speed to almost nothing and feathered the right rudder, slewing the ship's open rear end around toward Matt's position. Keeping his hands firm on the controls, he slowly brought the ship lower. At about six feet off the surface he stopped, hovering, holding the Helix as steady as he could between a pair of capped smokestacks.

Lexa made her way back to the edge of the ramp. She wrapped her left hand around a conduit and peered out the open hatch.

"I see him!"

Matt was about twenty feet away, coming at a sort of shambling run. Still holding onto the conduit, Lexa knelt down, ready to assist.

"Jump!"

Matt jumped, but Lexa could see that he wasn't going to make it. She stretched out, extending her arm as far as she could. Well behind him on the roof surface the access door to the building was flung open, and Damien Acosta burst through.

Her hair flying wildly from the engine backwash, Lexa watched helplessly as Matt fell short of the ramp, slamming into it with a hoarse grunt about chest high. He slid downward, his legs dangling, his hands scrabbling fruitlessly for any kind of handhold. Lexa couldn't reach him without letting go of the conduit. She was sure he was going to fall completely, but then something seemed to give him a boost from below because he was abruptly launched forward, landing sprawling on the ramp. She seized his wrist in a locking grip before he could slide back again.

"Close the hatch!" she shouted.

Jesse slapped the control with one hand, gave it a two count to close sufficiently, then pointed the Helix's nose skyward. As soon as the aperture closed Lexa relaxed her grip. The telepath lay on the ramp's rubber mat, positively dripping with sweat from his exertions, his chest heaving. Blood was running freely from a cut above his right eye, and his expensive suede jacket bore stains and several ragged tears. He looked totally wiped. Lexa got her arms around him and hauled, trying to lift him to a sitting position. With her help he was able to get his hands beneath him. He pushed to his knees.

Jesse had just leveled out at about a hundred feet when suddenly the Helix was rocked by a violent jolt that sent them tumbling. Shalimar managed to keep Jaryl from sliding out of her seat, but not without jarring her fractured leg, wringing a hiss of fine agony from her whitened lips. Matt started scrambling up the ramp's slope toward her. Lexa shook the stars from her vision caused by the impact of her head against the hull.

"What the hell was that?" she demanded.

Jesse didn't have the breath to answer. His budding euphoria at their escape exploded from him with a grunt when he was flung forward against the instrument panel. It almost felt like they had hit something, which was patently absurd. An alarm started wailing. He killed it with an aggravated snap of a switch, his eyes darting automatically to the readout. What it told him left him speechless.

They were frozen in mid-air.

Another jolt shook the ship, but the feeling was different this time, like they had been pulled backwards or something. He checked the altimeter, and couldn't believe his eyes. They had lost ten feet. He goosed the throttle. Nothing happened.

"What's going on, Jess?" Shalimar had given way to Matt when he fast-crawled over to Jaryl, and now hovered near Brennan. One hand gripped the back of his chair, bracing his head against the possibility of whiplash from subsequent jerks. Lexa brushed past her to take the copilot's chair once again.

"I don't know!" he shouted back, "It's like we're caught in some kind of force field. The helm isn't answering."

"Engine temperature is climbing," Lexa announced from beside him.

"Telekinesis," Matt said without turning around. He had eyes only for his wife. She felt his presence; her eyes opened and the corners of her mouth tilted upward as he leaned in close, buffering her with his body and his power.

"Nobody's that powerful!" Lexa objected. Irony hung heavy in the air as the Helix jerked again, disproving her supposition by dropping another couple of feet.

"He's reeling us in like a freaking fish!" Jesse was incredulous. They were now about 80 feet off the ground…make that just over seventy as the ship was yanked again. At this rate they'd be crashing back into the roof in another couple of minutes. He pushed the throttle forward as far as it would go, and felt the ship tremble with the strain, still going nowhere. The temperature gauge climbed inexorably toward the red zone. It was starting to look like a toss-up – land on their own, crash into the roof, or have the engines explode.

"Any ideas?" Shalimar asked Matt.

She didn't ask him if he could intervene; he was obviously so exhausted that any kind of confrontation would be sheer folly.

"We need a distraction," Matt said, "Light, sound, an explosion – anything to rattle his concentration for even a couple of seconds. At the rate he's expending energy, that's all it will take."

_Yank! _ Jesse's thoughts raced. Though all he could see out the windshield was sky and tree tops, the sensors tracked the energy holding them to Acosta's position on the roof. Jesse's imagination could almost picture their foe drawing them in hand over fist with an invisible rope. Unbelievable! The engines were making some difference; their descent had slowed a bit, but they were now down to less than sixty feet. He had to think of something fast.

"The engines are going red!" Lexa cried.

_Yank! _ Another alarm went off, making them all cringe with the shrillness of the klaxon. Jesse started to slap it off - how could anyone concentrate with that racket? - when the answer suddenly hit him in a bolt of pure inspiration. He released the throttle to send both hands dancing over the controls.

The sound inside the cabin suddenly went broadband, amplified and focused as he sent it blaring out over the external speakers. The unseen grip on the Helix lessened. Jesse took advantage of the slack to stomp on the right rudder, one eye on his sensor screen. The ship's rear swung around, nailing Acosta at nearly point-blank range with the heat and wind of the twin engines' backwash, sending him staggering back. At the same time Jesse slammed the throttle forward once more, the other hand keeping her nose up.

It worked. The invisible grip broke. Freed from her restraint, the Double Helix shot forward like a race horse sprung from the starting gate, launching skyward with a burst of incredible speed. Within seconds they were out of sight of Naxcon and soaring free through the clear blue sky.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

He had lost this round. Watching the airship until it was out of sight, Damien Acosta conceded that much. Distracting him with that sudden, piercing blare of sound and then slewing the ship around to bring its engines to bear, forcing him to release them in order to create a strong telekinetic shield to protect himself from either being burned by the heat or flayed alive in the fierce backwash, had been an unexpected and canny move. His respect for his adversaries rose a notch even as he cursed himself for underestimating their ingenuity. He had them in his grasp, and he let them slip away. This was a significant setback to his plans – significant, but not insurmountable. He would have to be better prepared the next time. 

And there would be a next time. Damien knew that with utter certainty.

The situation was not a total loss, however. He still had the data and blood samples taken from the woman before the assault. Her husband thought he had destroyed it, but it had already been transferred on to his new facility. Mutant X would think the same thing, and report that destruction to the Dominion. That gave him an advantage, a window of time that he should be able to exploit.

The first order of business was to settle things here. He took out his phone and ordered his Chief Operating Officer at the Providence facility to scramble every available forensics team over to Naxcon. He knew that Brennan Mulwray had been severely injured, and through Jason Voss he had observed blood on the feral, Shalimar Fox. Chances were good that some of that blood had been left here, and he wanted every bit of that valuable DNA that could be recovered. He had big plans for it.

Naxcon would have to be torched after that, of course. He disliked having to do it, as the company had supplied a steady flow of cash, but there was no help for it. As soon as the Dominion learned what had happened here they would be all over the place, and there were certain things that they must not find – among them the bodies of their operatives. Damien was fairly sure that gray-suited assault squad was from the Dominion, and that their mission was to take the woman. But over Mutant X's dead bodies? Was the mutant team going rogue, or was this a typical Dominion betrayal? That was the question, and a most intriguing one at that. The Dominion may have just provided him with a lever to pry Mutant X from their side to his. Damien found the stairwell door and opened it, mulling the possibilities over in his mind. Mulwray and the others could be valuable allies. At the moment, though, he just didn't have enough information to speculate with any degree of accuracy. Perhaps a chat with the assault squad's leader would prove helpful. It was a good thing he had the foresight to keep the man alive, at least for the present.

He started down the flight of stairs from the roof, more tired than he wanted to admit. Trying to stop the airship had drained him severely, but it was good to know that he was more than equal to the task. If not for their stratagem he would have had that ship on the ground and all the occupants in custody, particularly the woman and her unborn child. As worn down as they all were, they would have been no match for him.

He walked down the steps to the second floor. Uniformed Naxcon medical technicians scurried here and there, calling to each other over the radios in their fists, latched boxes of splints, drugs and other medical supplies bouncing against their thighs as they hurried back and forth between groups of wounded. He stopped a pair leading a battered Special Forces operative toward the elevator, speaking briefly with the female half of the team before allowing them to proceed. In the atrium below another team had their hands full tending to six others in various stages of consciousness. Damien looked out over the rail, watching them.

Today's debacle had severely depleted his Special Forces units. If the medtech's preliminary report was to be believed, nearly two-thirds of his grafted mutants were either dead or incapacitated. He wouldn't have thought it possible that Mutant X could have caused so much damage, even with the addition of the telekinetic. By his calculations they had to have been outnumbered by at least three to one. The master of Naxcon shook his head in wonder.

They were formidable indeed. Damien would have to give long and serious thought to devising a strategy to bring them into his orbit without jeopardizing his overall plans. He would like to have them of their own accord, but it was possible to get them without it. It would have to be done carefully; they would no doubt be wary of him at first, especially with the Dominion pouring poisons into their ears. But it could be done. He would have to keep his initial contacts unobtrusive, bend them slowly into turning against their Dominion masters, because the kind of telepathic coercion he had achieved with Jason Voss was a delicate thing in the early stages. It would take time to bind them to him, but bind them he would, and all without their knowledge. It would be a challenge, but the rewards could be great.

Thinking of Voss reminded him that he was also going to have to find a replacement for the man. It was a pity, really; he had been so nicely broken in. Voss' death was what stopped him from capturing the three fleeing women. He had been mentally connected with his security chief when the Pierce woman killed him, sending feedback shocks of white-hot lightning sizzling through Acosta's brain and stunning him long enough for Mutant X to escape with his prize. Lexa Pierce would pay dearly for that, but Acosta decided that he probably wouldn't kill her. Her powers, her training, made her too useful a tool to waste if he didn't have to, but it also made her dangerous. Perhaps he would just put her in stasis, siphoning her DNA to create an unending supply of Lexas. That idea had possibilities.

But that was all secondary. He needed the empath to really accelerate his plans. The data they obtained from her would give them a good start, but with her he could make himself invincible. Where had Mutant X taken her? To Sanctuary? Damien didn't think so. The logical thing to do would be to hide her again as she had been hidden all these years. That, however, couldn't happen right away. They needed to take her somewhere. Damien gave serious thought to mustering all his remaining forces in a winner-take-all gamble to find and capture her again, but finally decided against it. Patience, he counseled himself. He must keep his eye on his ultimate goal. The Dominion had greater resources at the moment, not to mention the inside track with Lexa Pierce acting as liaison between them and Mutant X. She would report to her contact where they took the empath and her husband. The Dominion would then start gathering information to plan an assault – information that he would gain as well from his spies. In the meantime he would use the data and resources he already had to rebuild his faux mutant army. He would wait and watch and plan. Then, when the time was right, he would destroy the Dominion, seize the woman, and grind her husband into the dust.

This wasn't over yet – not by a long shot.

The slingshot effect of the Double Helix's sudden release had them out of sight of Naxcon in just a few seconds. Jesse cut back on the throttle to ease the strain on her overworked engines. The temperature gauge gradually fell back once more to safe levels, and the accompanying alarm fell silent. They were safe. He slumped back in the pilot's chair, wincing as his back muscles protested. He shifted slightly, trying to stretch them and gain some relief without attracting attention.

Shalimar slackened her grip on the back of Brennan's seat, releasing his head from where it had been braced between her cheek and the crook of her elbow. Pushing off the knee she had lodged between his, she drew back slowly, not even realizing until now how she had wrapped herself against him when the jolting started, even though she knew perfectly well that he had been securely buckled into his seat. Her hand slid down, lingering briefly on his neck. It wasn't necessary for her to check his pulse; she knew that intellectually, but her hand seemed to have a mind of its own, so she went along with it, not really questioning the action. When it came back steady and strong she drew away with a feather-light stroke along the firm, square line of his jaw and went back to her own seat, picking up the last blanket from the cushion and pushing the first aid kit aside before plopping down, weary to the bone. The sudden sharp pain in her left shoulder reminded her of the glass embedded in her skin, so she leaned forward and swiveled the seat around, the folded blanket across her lap.

Matt had also relaxed his posture, easing back from Jaryl a few inches. From her vantage point Shalimar could almost see the wordless communication flashing back and forth between them. It was there in his apprehensive, even anxious countenance, the rueful lift of her eyelashes, the faint, self-deprecating quirk at the corner of her mouth. Jaryl managed to free her good hand from the cover and reached up to touch his face in a reassuring, if wavering caress. He closed his eyes for the briefest of moments, giving himself up to her touch. Then Shalimar saw something like fear leap in his face as her strength failed; he caught her hand as it fell and clasped it tightly in his, as though anchoring her to him. He kept his eyes locked on her, and the feral felt very much a voyeur to be watching such an intimate moment, with his love and deep worry written so plainly on his taut face.

Jaryl gave him a tremulous little smile. The blanket quivered as she inhaled three times in quick, jerky breaths. Then she exhaled more slowly, the breath leaving her in a soft sort of sigh, the blanket settling on her breasts. Her eyes drifted closed, her head lolling against his bracing arm.

Matt went unnaturally still for a long moment. Slowly, haltingly, he leaned forward. His lips brushed hers ever so tenderly in a kiss she could no longer feel. His head bowed low, still clasping her limp hand in his. A tremor ran through his body. Drops of water which could have been sweat or tears left dark little spots on the pale gray blanket.

The interior of the Helix was utterly silent. Even Jesse, as intent as he was on his piloting and distracted by his own aches, could feel that something was going on. He glanced over at Lexa. She too had turned her seat around and had been watching the scene. The bruising around her eye gave her a faintly raccoon-like appearance, but what was even more striking was the sorrow he saw on her face. It told him all he needed to know. A crushing wave of grief flowed over him.

Shalimar slipped to her knees beside Matt, unfolding the blanket as she did so. She draped it over his shoulders and hesitantly laid her arm across his back. It was the only support she could offer him, and she was woefully aware of how inadequate a gesture it was. His head lifted unconsciously, his demeanor that of a man sleepwalking. Exhaustion scored deep lines in his face, his dark eyes an abyss of pain.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered.

Shalimar's heart broke over the emptiness she saw there, and even a sort of bewilderment, as if he didn't recognize her or his surroundings. She wished there was something she could say, but as she had learned with Emma and Adam, there really were no magic words that could help heal such a soul-searing grief, this double loss of his wife and his child. Her arm tightened around him.

Matt blinked. He had heard her words, felt the pressure of her half embrace as if from far away. Truthfully, he had forgotten she was there, forgotten even the Helix and their narrow escape from Naxcon. Meeting her eyes, he saw tears glittering in their soft brown depths, felt sympathy and grief from her gentle touch lapping at his unprotected senses. He wondered about it at first, then gradually it began to dawn on him that she was offering him her condolences. His expression cleared slightly.

"No, she's not dead," he said. Immediately he felt a wave of relief transmitted through the arm still across his back, that contact making her thoughts difficult to shut out in his current state. He sensed some confusion as well, so he continued his explanation. "She's just gone under – reduced her energy output to near zero; pulled deep inside herself to better focus on the most critical injuries." He tried to smile and almost succeeded. "She calls it her 'Jedi healing trance'."

He climbed laboriously to his feet, letting Shalimar's arm and the third blanket slide off. He stepped around her. Taking a deep breath, he focused his waning power on his wife, encasing her in a sheathe of telekinetic energy. Her body rose slowly, wobblingly. Shalimar stood and backed up, giving her room. When he had her clear enough of the cushion, he slipped in beneath her. Her body descended gently into his waiting arms. He held her close to him, resting her head on his hard, muscled shoulder, cradling her in his lap as delicately as if she were made of fine china. His power then gathered along her fractured leg, forming a sort of energy cast around it as he eased it to dangle over the edge of the seat. 

Shalimar returned to her seat, again twirling it sideways and leaning forward. She had not mistaken the pain she saw in his eyes a moment ago, though he had known that Jaryl was alive. What, then, had caused it? Shalimar had an awful feeling that she knew. She glanced over at Lexa. Her teammate immediately turned back around to the front, but not before Shal caught something in her eyes that made her realize that Lexa had come to the same conclusion. But how could she ask Matt a question like that, even obliquely? Seeking something to do with her hands, she leaned forward and picked up the blanket that had fallen from his shoulders to the aisle floor. She folded it slowly, smoothing the creases with inordinate precision, the wool soft and comforting to her sore hands. She could sense his eyes on her, and it made her nervous. Did he know what she was thinking? She hoped not. She didn't want to add to his pain. Her fingers fiddled with a thread hanging from the binding.

His sight attracted by Shalimar's restless movements, Matt glanced over, watching her as she toyed with the thread. He knew that he was probably the cause of her nervousness. Now that the battle was over and there was nothing else to distract her, she was probably uncomfortable being in such close quarters with him, just as she would be with any other telepath. It was a reaction he was accustomed to, this vague suspicion that he might at any given moment be monitoring the thoughts of another. That was one of the reasons he never went out of his way to advertise that particular ability. Most of the time that kind of suspicion provoked annoyance in him, but from what he could gather from their time at Sanctuary, the feral had sufficient reason to react as she did. She couldn't know that his head ached abominably, or that his current command over his telepathy was practically nonexistent. Maybe if he told her he could put her at ease. His head rolled over sideways, his heavy-lidded gaze meeting hers.

"You can relax, you know; I'm not reading you," he said tiredly, "I'm not sure I could right now even if I wanted to. Nor was I eavesdropping on you while we were at Naxcon. I only connected with Jesse, and then only a surface contact to facilitate communication in battle. I didn't go any deeper than that. I meant what I said before – I don't mind-scan people indiscriminately. Your thoughts are safe from me."

She started, and he sighed inwardly. That was the truth as far as it went, but sympathy for what she must have gone through as well as his growing respect for her compelled him to be completely honest. He drew a long breath and released it slowly, almost visibly bracing himself for another startled reaction. "Which is not to say that I might not pick up a stray thought or two if you broadcast it strongly enough, or if we're in actual physical contact." His features twisted, taking on a rather ironic expression. "I'm afraid my usual defenses are pretty much toast for a while."

Shalimar read the sincerity in his tone and tried to relax. She knew he wasn't like Gabriel Ashlocke, hadn't really feared that he would try to invade her mind, but some monsters died slowly. She appreciated his understanding, that he didn't hold her little phobia against her. Beyond that, she was grateful that he wasn't reading her thoughts right now. This was a private tragedy between husband and wife, and she felt intrusive enough as it was just being aware of it.

She saw him shift a little, trying to ease the unconscious empath to a more comfortable position. The blanket tucked so solicitously around her did a good job of disguising her battered body. Except for a few streaks of blood still on her face and the messy gash on his forehead they could have been taken for a couple cuddling together in a cozy embrace. The only problem was that Shalimar knew better. She had seen the empath curled up in pain, her body rigid, her arms clasped tightly over her belly; had felt the spasms wracking her as she carried Jaryl out of Naxcon. It was a miracle she was still alive.

Jesse made a slight course correction and spoke up worriedly from the pilot's chair.

"Will Jaryl be all right?"

Matt hesitated. Something about his manner made him seem to draw back into the shadows. His voice took on a carefully neutral tone.

"In time."

Silence hung heavy in the air. No one seemed to know how to respond to that; it was apparent to them all that there was something he wasn't saying. Matt didn't appear to notice.

"Brennan has been completely healed," he said, changing the subject, "Jaryl wanted me to tell you that. He'll sleep for a long while, maybe twenty-four hours or more, and he'll be weak for a few days after that, but he's as good as new."

"Why did she do it?" Jesse asked, "Take all of his injuries, I mean. I thought she was just going to stabilize him."

"That was the original plan," Matt answered, "But when I sensed Acosta coming that plan went out the window. Up until then she could proceed carefully, work on Brennan's most critical injuries one at a time until she could get him to a point where he could be moved safely."

Matt's shoulders slumped. "But you know what they say about best-laid plans. Acosta is so powerful that I sensed him coming from a quarter mile away. Jaryl was working on shifting a broken rib away from Brennan's heart. At that point, though, she knew she was out of time. I couldn't have held him off; I was busy getting blindsided by the two missing goons." He gestured toward the cut on his forehead now covered over with clotted blood. "Your warning came just a little late."

"Sorry."

Matt waved a dismissing hand and continued.

"So she took matters into her own hands – she opened herself fully and absorbed everything all at once, figuring that she could deal with the consequences better than Brennan could."

"That glow." Shalimar nodded as if something had just clicked in her mind. Matt gave her a questioning look.

"I remember thinking as I was crossing back over the storage room that the glow from her energy field seemed a lot brighter," she explained, "I thought maybe it was just my imagination, but I guess that was Jaryl opening herself up."

"She was doing what she thought she had to do under the circumstances." He grimaced, his brow furrowing in response to the pounding in his head that he could no longer shunt aside. Deep inside he was castigating himself for not being able to give her more time. Lexa thought she detected a touch of bitterness in his tone and jumped on it.

"Maybe if you'd have stayed there she wouldn't have had to."

Matt glared at her, not at all appreciative of the snarky tone.

"Could _you_ have seen reinforcements coming and given warning?" he snapped coldly, "Could _you_ have fought on three different fronts at the same time? You have no conception of how Jaryl and I work together. For your information, I _was_ there, in ways you can't even imagine. In short, you don't know what the hell you're talking about."

Soundly put in her place, Lexa pursed her lips in a soundless whistle and slowly turned back around, her cheeks flaming. Jesse threw a surprised glance at her, but she ignored him. Silence hung like a dark, heavy cloak in the cabin. Finally Matt spoke again, and when he did his tone was calmer and very earnest.

"There's something I want you to understand," he said, speaking not just to one, but to all three of them, "If Brennan hadn't offered his help - and by extension, yours - I wouldn't have found Jaryl in time. I owe him, and all of you, more than you know. Because of that, and since he was injured trying to help rescue her, Jaryl felt honor-bound to help him. I agreed, despite my concern over what effect it might have on her."

Matt closed his eyes briefly, slumping wearily against the back of the seat, and sighed heavily.

"There's an old saying that with great power comes great responsibility," he continued, "For people like us, it's also about choices, and consequences." He glanced at Brennan's dark head just before him, then over to Shalimar. "But I don't have to tell you about that."

Shalimar's eyes also went to Brennan. No, he didn't have to say anything about choices and consequences. Brennan's sacrifice today was just the latest example of how this team, this _family_, risked their lives for each other every day…and how, as he had also very nearly demonstrated - sometimes they lost.

Matt's chin dipped toward his chest. He brought his free hand up to slowly stroke his wife's cheek. "What the saying doesn't mention is the cost. Jaryl's power is way off the charts, and she has the strongest, most resilient spirit of anyone I've ever known. Yet as remarkable as her gift is, or maybe because of it, she pays a price every time she uses her power. Sometimes the price is negligible. And sometimes it's almost …too much to bear."

Shalimar's heart sank. His words confirmed her worst fears. Matt must have known as soon as it happened; he looked like he had aged ten years. She couldn't blame him for not wanting to say it out loud. Maybe that was part of the reason Jaryl had 'gone under', to use his phrase. Maybe she needed that private space deep inside herself to come to terms with what had happened. To grieve over her loss.

Matt continued speaking, his eyes still focused on Jaryl's still, grey features.

"Organ traumas are tricky things," he murmured. It was becoming more apparent how exhausted he was; his voice was dropping, and the words were tumbling out now, as if he were too tired to stop them, too drained in body and spirit to even try. He seemed to be almost talking to himself, only peripherally aware of Shalimar, and even less of the other two. "They often have effects beyond the actual injury, create…issues…in other areas. Spread toxins, things like that. Dealing with one is fairly straightforward. Dealing with multiple severe traumas and fractures like she took from Brennan is…very dangerous. She needs to be able to focus her energy, repair one thing at a time, but if she's hit with too much at once, she could…lose control. Unexpected things can occur."

Shalimar spoke up softly.

"Is that what happened – she lost control?"

"Not exactly. There was just so much to juggle, so little time…" His voice trailed off. He tucked a blanket edge a little closer around her, gently brushed back a stray lock of burgundy hair. "I just need to get her home."

"We'll be there in less than five minutes," Jesse assured him.

It took several seconds for that statement to penetrate, but when it did Matt looked up in total bewilderment.

"Wait a second. How do you know where it is?"

Jesse threw a quick look over his shoulder.

"From the coordinates you gave me."

Matt looked as if he had been zapped by one of Brennan's electrical arcs. "I didn't give you any coordinates." He paused, as if searching his memory. "Did I?"

"Of course you did," Jesse replied. Then his face took on a stunned look. Now that he thought about it, he didn't remember hearing Matt give him the coordinates, either vocally or inside his head. They were just …there. "Didn't you?"

Matt let his head fall back against the top of the seat. Perfect. He was so wasted he was transmitting without being aware of it. If there wasn't already enough paranoia about telepaths in the immediate vicinity before, this should juice it up nicely. What else had leaked out? The only bright spot, if there was one, was that it was Jesse that he transmitted to instead of Shalimar. The feral probably would have freaked out.

"The way my head is pounding, I wouldn't be at all surprised," he said finally with a resigned sigh, "I'm sorry."

"Forget it."

Lexa's panel warbled softly. Jesse cocked his head sideways.

"What?"

"We're being hailed." She started to toggle a switch, then arrested the movement as a different tone sounded. Her voice tightened. "Some sort of targeting system is locking onto us."

She flipped a switch. Immediately a male voice filled the small space, speaking in the somewhat stilted accent of one speaking a tongue not native to him.

"….peat, unidentified craft, you are approaching restricted airspace. Identify and state your intentions."

"I've got this," Matt said. He spoke a few terse sentences in a language that even Jesse, with his privileged background and cosmopolitan education, didn't recognize. The speaker responded in the same language, though his tone was softer and infinitely more respectful, even deferential. Lexa thought she could almost hear his heels clicking together, see him snapping to attention. The voice changed back to accented English.

"Sir, please continue on your present course. We are transmitting a landing beacon for you to follow, and have cleared the main pad. You may begin your descent, and welcome."

"Thank you."

Framed by the lowering sun, they rode pale streamers of pink, gold and orange toward one of the mountains framing the western edge of the city, over a pristine forest, across green meadows and a fair-sized lake. Not far from the lake was a cluster of buildings set around and behind a much larger one, a residence that could only be described as palatial. The thing was four stories of glass and accented red brick, rectangular in shape, with elegant porticos and a flat roof that held at least four armed sentries that Jesse could see. The mansion was wide enough to house a football field on each floor, and he'd bet heavily that there were underground levels as well.

The whole estate was huge, and it was obvious that there was a ton of money involved here. Jesse cut speed and dipped lower, passing over an Olympic-sized pool, marbled terraces, lavish gardens and a wide, perfectly manicured front lawn that sloped gently to a thick, encircling hedge hiding it from the street. To the side of the mansion was a concrete helipad marked with a bold red X. People were scurrying about like ants, swarming around the pad, but staying back. Quite a number of them were heavily armed military types, more than enough to make Lexa fidget nervously. For the first time Jesse realized that they knew very little about Matt. Who was he really? What was the source of his wealth, and why did he need what amounted to his own private army? Was this all just to protect his wife from people like Mason Eckhart?

As he approached the pad Jesse glanced around, taking note of a whole bunch of physical and electronic security features. He found himself getting a little nervous also. This place looked like it was guarded better than Fort Knox. On the other hand, who was he to judge? He and his friends lived inside a mountain full of high tech defenses for their own safety. All things considered, Jesse decided that Matt had earned the benefit of the doubt. He extended the landing gear and set the Helix down gently in the middle of the X. Lexa tapped the hatch release.

Aided by his telekinetic power, Matt got to his feet with Jaryl in his arms. Two men in white tunics and trousers bounded up the ramp towing a floating, padded litter. Two other people similarly attired waited at the bottom of the ramp. Matt gently laid her on the litter and spoke a few words to the attendants. They secured her on the litter with straps, then one of the men guided it down the ramp. The other medical people converged around it, quickly steering it toward the mansion and out of sight.

The remaining attendant hovering nearby, Matt turned back to the others. One hand clutched the back of the seat he had just left in support.

"I'd be glad to have you join us," he said, "We have an on-site medical staff, full spa facilities, and a host of other amenities. You all look like you could use some down time and TLC."

Shalimar stood and spoke for them all.

"No," she said softly, shaking her head, "Thank you, but no." She brought her hand up to lightly touch his other arm and squeezed gently. "You shouldn't have to worry about having us underfoot. Jaryl needs you." Sorrow and sadness filled her liquid brown eyes. "You two should be together now."

Matt nodded, grateful for her understanding.

"Thank you. Thank you all. We are in your debt." He turned, faltering as his knees buckled, grabbing the chair back once again to catch himself. Instantly the waiting attendant stepped smoothly to his side, laying Matt's other arm across his shoulders, and helped him carefully down the ramp. Lexa closed the hatch.

A moment later the Double Helix rose gracefully from her perch and sailed for home in silence.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

"They were _slaughtered_!"

A voice as cold and hard as tempered steel thundered through the chamber. It wasn't often that the Master of the Dominion Governing Council displayed any emotion at all, but when his anger was unleashed heads invariably rolled – sometimes literally. Around the table people shifted uncomfortably, trying not to wilt or show fear under the fierce intensity of his glare.

The details of the Naxcon mission were just coming to light, and by the looks of things it was shaping up to be a debacle of epic proportions. Every single member of the highly trained and heavily armed assault squad was dead. A few appeared to have died in battle with Damien Acosta's gene-spliced minions, but eighteen of them were found with their necks broken in almost exactly the same place, but with no external sign of trauma. There could be no question that Damien Acosta had used his telekinetic power to deliberately murder them in cold blood. Even worse, the whole squad had been found stripped to their underclothes and dumped together in a mass grave. That meant that Acosta now had their new energy-absorbing suits, and it wouldn't take him long to figure out the technology behind them. The Naxcon facility had been destroyed, and Acosta himself had vanished without a trace. To say that the Master was displeased was a massive understatement.

The only positive in all this was that Acosta didn't have Target Alpha. Stephen Thornton was able to report that much at least when he briefed the Council on Mutant X's part in this fiasco. It was of small comfort, since Dr. Harrison had undoubtedly been able to examine her and do some preliminary testing on her DNA before she was rescued. What he would learn would undoubtedly be utilized in the next group of gene-spliced mutants, making them and Damien Acosta that much more dangerous. The down side was that the Dominion didn't have the woman either, something Anthony Gervaye was quick to point out.

"Mutant X is to blame for this," he snarled, "If they hadn't interfered, the assault squad would have been in and out of Naxcon with Target Alpha long before Damien Acosta arrived!"

And by implication, if they had been delayed as planned, they wouldn't have been able to upset the mission in the first place. Stephen Thornton was fully cognizant of the accusation hanging in the air. There was no love lost between himself and Gervaye, but Thornton took pains to keep his feelings in the background. What they did here was far too important to allow such petty animosities to obstruct the Dominion's overall mandate. Once in a while, though, something managed to slip through his iron control.

"If it wasn't for Mutant X, Target Alpha would be in Acosta's hands right now," Thornton snapped back, "The assault squad would have been too late. Ms. Pierce reports that an evacuation of the Naxcon facility was already well under way when they arrived. They were just in time to keep her from being spirited to another location – an as yet _undisclosed_ location." Thornton kept his face impassive. Two could play the insinuation game.

"Oh, _Ms. Pierce_ reports," Gervaye sneered. He couldn't stand that chair-bound miscreant any more than he could tolerate those insolent freaks of nature he so adamantly coddled. "This is nothing more than a transparent effort to shift culpability away from themselves!"

Thornton's jaw tightened, but before he could respond Dominique's clear voice intervened.

"We purposely kept our interest in this affair from Mutant X," she said, "As such, we can hardly complain that their goals did not coincide with our own. It should be noted that regardless of whether their actions cost us the woman at this juncture, because of their efforts we will have future opportunities to acquire her – something we would not have if she had remained in Damien Acosta's hands."

Although she kept her focus straight ahead, Dominique did not miss Thornton's quick glance of surprise at her defense of Mutant X. Right now he was no doubt wondering about her motive in defending the team. She smiled inwardly. Let the old fox wonder, she thought to herself.

The Kenyan, Akeli Anoke, spoke next.

"We must also recognize that Mutant X killed or incapacitated a disparate number of Acosta's Special Forces agents, and precipitated the destruction of a significant profit center," he said, "Acosta will have to shift his Naxcon people to other projects, which may allow us to identify and infiltrate his other operations."

"The assault team would have killed all of his jumped-up street thugs!" Gervaye shot back. The discussion was not going the way he intended. It had been a huge mistake for the Council to take over funding for Mutant X after the death of their founder, Adam Kane. In Gervaye's mind, they should have been eradicated as the dangerous freaks they were, and he wasted no opportunity to undermine their credibility. He quickly sought to bring the discussion back on topic.

"Can you deny that Mutant X bungled the operation?" he riposted, fixing Thornton with a venomous glare, "If Acosta's forces hadn't been alerted to their presence, and if Acosta himself hadn't been drawn prematurely to Naxcon by their mistakes, the assault team would still be alive and the energy-absorbing suits would not now be in Acosta's hands!"

Before the bearded man could answer, the Council Master half rose, leaning ominously toward Gervaye and impaling him with a look that dripped icicles.

"And can _you_ deny that it was your assignment to locate Damien Acosta and his new facility?" he snapped, "You should have known his location, been able to prevent him from reaching Naxcon. Even now you have no idea where he is, or any other facet of his organization. You have failed, Gervaye!"

The biting indictment struck Gervaye like the red-hot lash of an electrified whip. Bitter resentment flashed in his eyes, but was quickly controlled. The Master fixed him with an implacable stare.

"Acosta has proven himself to be a major threat to Dominion interests," he said in the concise, glacial tones of a boss wanting to make sure his subordinate was getting his message loud and clear, "For what he has done, he is a dead man walking. Finding him - quickly - is your top priority – your _only_ priority. Do you understand?"

Unwilling to meet that deadly gaze, Gervaye's eyes dropped. He mumbled something and subsided into sullen silence. The Master held his stare for a long moment before turning to the Kenyan.

"What have you found out about the husband and his organization?"

"Not much, I'm afraid," he answered, "His name doesn't appear in any civic, government or law enforcement records anywhere in the world. Our connections in the larger criminal organizations have never heard of him. About all we know revolves around the estate where Mutant X dropped him off after the Naxcon raid. It is owned by a corporation that also doesn't exist. I have long-term surveillance teams already moving into place around it. The stun weapon Ms. Pierce described is not in any known arsenal. We know of one or two surrogates in development, but neither company has any ties to him. There are a number of other avenues we are pursuing, but it's too soon to expect results."

The Master acknowledged the analysis with a brief nod.

"Your opinion?"

"Either 'Matthew Star' is an alias, or someone has gone to a great deal of time and effort to scrub any record of his existence," Anoke said, "Either implies an organization with resources and connections that rival our own. I believe it's the latter. I also believe that these connections have deep government roots, both civilian and military."

"Military?"

"The evidence is thin, I admit." The Kenyan took off his glasses and polished the lenses with a gold handkerchief, something he was prone to do when he was nervous. He replaced them on the bridge of his nose and blinked apologetically. "There was a rumor some ten years ago of an uncannily successful team working with the Air Force on a variety of undercover assignments. No one knows who they were or who they worked for, but the code name for the team was 'Gemini'. My people are digging for more as we speak."

"The same name as the project which studied Target Alpha's powers," Dominique observed in her cool voice."

"Just so. It may be a coincidence, but it may not. Based on Ms. Pierce's report that the husband is a telepath as well as a telekinetic, the way his mind is linked with his wife, and given that in the Zodiac Gemini refers to 'twins', I thought it was worth pursuing." Anoke didn't add that he didn't have much else that was worth pursuing.

"And what of this 'Project Gemini'?" the Master barked.

"I have it here," Dominique said, "Everything from the Genomex files, plus some ancillary information. We also have a line on the freelancer whose information allowed Acosta's people to ambush the woman. He'll be in custody within the hour."

"Very well." The Master's steely gaze traveled around the table, fixing on each one in turn.

"Damien Acosta represents the most dangerous threat this organization has faced in over a decade," he intoned, "I want all sections focused on finding him and all the pieces of his organization. As soon as he is found, he is to be terminated. I also expect regular updates on Target Alpha and her husband."

The Master rose, ending the meeting. Recognizing their dismissal, the Council members started to disperse, Gervaye in the lead.

"Stephen."

Thornton halted his chair and turned back to the gun-barrel eyes of the Council Master.

"Sooner or later we will acquire Target Alpha. Mutant X will not be allowed to interfere."

Shalimar Fox sprawled in the padded wicker round chair in her bedroom, lost in her own thoughts. The glowing red numbers on the clock beside her ticking off the approach to midnight did nothing to relieve the all-encompassing blackness. The day had been physically and emotionally exhausting, but as wrung out as she was, she still couldn't sleep. After helping Jesse get Brennan cleaned up and squared away she had headed straight for the shower, wanting, no _needing_ to scrub the blood and sludge of Naxcon off her while Jesse tended to Lexa's bruises. The water had felt so good that she stayed there for nearly half an hour, letting the heat and the sensuous caress of the water knead and relax her tired muscles. She didn't even mind the stinging of the numerous cuts in her back and scalp as the beads of water lanced down, tiny knives at first, but gradually soothing away her hurts. A few of the shards had washed free and down the drain, but quite a few had not, so when she finally left the shower it was to spend the next hour or so in the lab, stretched out on a table under a retractable magnifier while Jesse picked glass out of her and applied antiseptic to the abrasions. Then they changed places and it was her turn to play doctor, treating his aching lower back with ultrasound waves, then giving him a slow, deep massage, not minding in the least the burn of the analgesic on her raw skin as she worked it into his muscles. It was a tribute to her skills that he was nearly dozing on the table when Lexa came in to announce that dinner was ready. Afterward Jesse had brought out some vintage brandy and offered to share, but Shalimar wasn't in the mood. All she wanted to do was curl up and crash.

Sleep, however, proved elusive. Her mind just wasn't ready to let go. Finally, after tossing and turning for over an hour, she gave up and went in search of something that she hoped would quiet the turmoil. Her scraped-up fingers now curled around a square-cut glass tumbler containing two fingers worth of her favorite form of liquid painkiller. A half-empty bottle of tequila held silent vigil on the small three-post table at her side.

She took a sip of the pale anesthesia and pulled a white faux fur throw a little higher over the silky aquamarine teddy she wore, staring unseeing into the night. Specters like wisps of smoke permeated her thoughts, tormenting her over and over with images and sounds from the day, warping them into what might have been, and try as she might, she couldn't shake them.

They had almost lost Brennan today. That's what kept haunting her. _She_ had almost lost him. She was the one he had been trying to save when he released that tremendous burst of electrical energy. Of course, they risked their lives for each other every day, but today was different. Somehow in her heart she knew that he hadn't expected to survive. He had deliberately sacrificed himself; had in effect thrown himself on a grenade. For her.

In her mind's eye she again saw his blood-splattered form lying in the rubble, his ribs crushed beneath the piece of I-beam. She heard the rattling gurgle of air straining to enter his deflated lung. She watched the telltale trail of crimson meander from his nose. She took another gulp of tequila, trying to burn away the faintly metallic taste of his blood in her mouth, the strong coppery smell still filling her nostrils many hours later. Some of it had still been on her fingers when she halted to check his pulse. She felt the faint throb in his neck slow, become erratic. She felt it stop.

That was the worst part, Shalimar reflected, draining the last swallow of liquor from the glass in her hand. It wasn't the sight of his blood that had been so unnerving. She had seen him wounded before. She had even seen him lying unconscious before, close to death. That had been bad, but this had been worse, much worse. It was the stillness, that awful moment when the faint, irregular pressure in the fingers she had glued to his neck just … stopped. For a brace of seconds she froze, not really registering what had just happened, certain that she must have just missed a beat, been distracted or something. But the stillness remained.

She reached for the bottle and poured another large dollop into the tumbler, her feral eyesight not in the least bothered by the absence of light. The other times he had been hurt there had been a surreal feeling to it, almost like it wasn't really happening because she could still feel the life within. This time, though, when his pulse winked out … that horrible stillness, when she couldn't feel him, it was so sudden, so… final.

The edge of the glass bumped her teeth. She hadn't experienced that when they lost the others; she never saw Adam, and Emma had already been gone. But Brennan - she had actually _felt_ him go. For a moment she fancied she could even sense his spirit slip out with that last faint gasp. For some reason it had made her so …_angry_, that he could even _think_ of leaving her like that, before she could…. Could what? Could …something, but whatever that something was it skittered away before her muddled mind could grasp it. She had threatened to kick his ass – as if that made any sense. But he must have heard her, because he came back. That didn't make any sense either.

She raised the glass again only to discover that it was empty. She didn't remember drinking the last swallow, but that didn't matter – there was more. She splashed a generous portion mostly into the glass and set the bottle down carefully on the swaying table.

The whole scene kept playing before her eyes again and again like a bad DVD stuck on rewind. It was strange that her mind had been able to pick up and retain so many details when it had all happened so fast. After throwing her toward the back of the storage room Brennan stepped between her and the chemical tanks. The flash of blue fire had been enormous and incredibly blinding; she was lucky she didn't suffer some kind of retina burn from it. He must have released every single ounce of electricity he had. Did she hear him scream? She thought she might have, but the crack of his lightning had been so loud that she couldn't be sure. A mushroom cloud of dust billowed through the room, choking her, enveloping the very air in a gray-white shroud. She sneezed, and the smell of blood – his blood – filled her senses.

More images paraded before her. He was half-buried in the rubble, his arm folded protectively over his head. She could still see the line of scarlet dripping down from the gash, tracing the ropes of muscle and sinew in his forearm, mixing with drywall flakes and tinting them pink. Her sensitive fingers detected the fracture beneath the cut and lifted the arm carefully so she could get to the pulse-point in his neck below that firm, square jaw. She felt the throb of life. Jesse and Lexa arrived. She stood up and grasped the I-beam that had fallen across the side of his chest. The beam had split skin and ruptured veins as it crashed onto him, spreading blood across his shirt. She saw herself pulling his tall form from the rubble, felt the dead weight of him in her arms. It had been so strange holding him like that, feeling him so broken and helpless. Brennan had always seemed to be the backbone of the team, tall, solid and indestructible, like a large piece of cured oak you couldn't help but lean on. She liked to lean on him.

Her foot skidded off the wicker frame of the chair and flopped over the edge, catching her toes in the white fur cover and making it slither to the floor. She tucked her foot back up, then realized that she would have to let it back down in order to pick up the throw. She shoved her foot loose again and reached for the throw, feeling a little shiver roll through her, as it was decidedly cool in her room. It took her a few seconds to register why she wasn't grasping the cover. Her glass. She couldn't pick up anything with a glass in her hand. She set it down next to the bottle with inordinate precision, then reached down with the other hand to draw the faux fur back over her body, sighing a little as the comforting warmth met her skin. She brought her foot back up, using her hand to help tuck it back into position, and picked up the glass once more.

Now, what had she been thinking about? Oh yes – Brennan as an oak tree. That was it. He would make a good tree, she decided, no doubt about that. He was sure tall enough. And solid enough. And strong enough. But now that she thought about it, Shalimar really didn't think she could see him as an oak tree. Oak was so staid, so … ordinary. Brennan Mulwray definitely wasn't ordinary. She took another swallow of tequila, considering the matter at great length. Mahogany, now – that was quality; subtle shades blending together in deep, rich, layers of solid, textured hardwood. Quality and class, and even a little mystery. She nodded sagely. Yep, that was ol' Bren – tall and dark and solid and strong and muscular… and infuriating… and egotistical… and deep… and fun… and stubborn… and hot… and masculine… and dependable… and powerful… and exciting… and fierce… and sexy… and …. Hmmm. Her glass was empty again. How did that happen?

She wrapped her fingers tightly around the sharply defined corners of the tumbler, squeezing it so tightly that she could feel her own heartbeat in them. The glass was warm from the heat of her hands, smooth and hard just like the column of his neck had been. She eased up on the pressure, and the feel of her pulse abruptly stopped. Just like Brennan's had. The stillness had come to claim him for its own. There had been no brush of breath against her cheek, no rise and fall of his chest, no heartbeat detectable to her feral hearing. Just the stillness. She and Jesse had beaten it back this time, had restored movement to heart and lungs, but who could say when the stillness would come again? The throb of life had blinked out without warning once before. What if it happened again? What if it was happening now and there was no one there to fight it off?

She had to be sure. She had to hear his heart beating, feel the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. That was the only way she could be certain that the stillness had not come for him once more. The empty tumbler fell from nerveless fingers as she lurched to her feet and made her unsteady way to the door.

Damien Acosta settled into his favorite overstuffed leather chair before a crackling fire, a snifter of warmed brandy swirling in his hand. Jazz music played softly in the background from the state-of-the-art sound system. The remains of a superbly-prepared meal were being cleared away by a small, slight man wearing a houseman's jacket moving silently through the penthouse.

He had much to consider as he dissected the events of the day because the decisions he made would affect both his immediate and long-term future, and he couldn't afford to make any mistakes. The Dominion Council was out for his blood now; they were buzzing like a nest of angry hornets over the elimination of their assault squad, and would leave no stone unturned in trying to track him down. Why they didn't expect him to retaliate when that same squad murdered his people after they were down made Damien shake his head in wonder. Maybe they thought he wouldn't dare. They were certainly that arrogant, that sure of their power. Perhaps now they would realize that Damien Acosta feared no one. He did, however, recognize when he had a problem on his hands.

He had known that this would happen once he made the decision to take the woman. Now the winner-take-all war with the Dominion had begun in earnest, sooner than he would have wanted, but there was no help for that now. The decimation of his Special Forces units and the sacrifice of Naxcon weakened him severely, but only in the short term. He had an unending supply of street muscle that he could upgrade with the DNA grafting process, and the energy-absorbing technology he just acquired should prove extremely useful as well. On the financial side, he already had surrogates well placed in three other highly profitable companies in diverse industries working to bring those profit centers under his control. In three months, maybe six at the outside, he would have regained what he lost today, with interest.

The question was, did he have six months? The Dominion had huge resources at their command, and their leadership was both brilliant and ruthless. He was now their number one priority. Fortunately they had put Anthony Gervaye in charge of locating him. The man was such a fool, an ambitious, greedy and potentially traitorous fool at that. Perhaps he could use those character flaws to distract the Council. Damien crossed his ankles on a leather hassock, sipping his brandy as he turned the matter over in his mind. Yes, it just might be possible. The first glimmers of a plan began to form. If it worked, Gervaye might even succeed in taking out some of the Council for him, throwing them into complete disarray. Oh, nothing so crude as having him walk in and start shooting, but perhaps a kidnap scheme of some sort. That might work out nicely. He would need a patsy, of course, someone to shield Gervaye from Council scrutiny until the time was ripe. If Damien was careful enough, the Council would never realize that he was behind the treason.

He would begin laying the groundwork immediately. He would have his intelligence people start creating a list of people with a possible grudge against the Dominion to use as his cat's paw. Damien himself would shadow Gervaye, using his telepathy to plant and encourage treasonous thoughts in the man's mind. From what he knew of Gervaye, it wouldn't take much to turn him.

But that would take time to set up. Right now he had to devise a countering strategy. The Council would have an army of techs going over the ruins of Naxcon with a fine-tooth comb. They would also have every available operative on the streets looking for him and trying to locate his Providence facility. Their intelligence and accounting units would start backtracking through Naxcon's records trying to uncover any connections through the financial trail.

He took another sip of the warmed brandy and allowed himself a small smile. They could look all they wanted, but there was no connection for them to find. His entire operation was compartmentalized, each one completely separate from the others. He had purposely planned it that way from the beginning. They would waste a lot of time and resources trying to find the disparate parts of his organization from that angle.

In the meantime he would not sit idly waiting for them to come to him, any more than he could let them discover how the battle at Naxcon had weakened him. Damien ticked off the points in his mind. First, he had to make sure to weed out any Dominion spies among the Naxcon workforce before shifting any more of them to Providence. That would entail meeting with them personally, an act that would be both expected and good PR. Employees liked to believe that their CEO had their welfare in mind after such a disaster, to know that everything was under control. His assistant was already coordinating with Human Resources to set up such a meeting at a neutral site. During that meeting, and in the meet-and-greet that followed, he would put his telepathy to good use.

Second, he would have his remaining Special Forces units implement guerilla strikes on Dominion facilities, causing as much mayhem as possible. The Dominion would have to reallocate substantial resources to protect their interests, keeping them off balance and lessening the impact on himself. They would also have to spend resources in rebuilding. Damien knew that the raids would naturally be small at first, mere nuisances, perhaps, but as his SF units rebuilt and swelled the attacks would escalate, providing needed training and experience for his people in addition to the disruption they caused.

Third, he had to push ahead on Dr. Harrison's research project. That was the real key. Everything hinged on being able to stabilize first the SF agents, and finally all mutant DNA. The children of Genomex would flock to him once word got out that he had a cure for their inherent death sentence, giving him a power base beyond anything the world had ever seen. There was no telling what vistas would be open to him.

There was, however, a wild card in the Dominion hand that he needed to consider most carefully. Would they send Mutant X after him? Damien examined the possibilities from a number of angles. Eventually he came to the conclusion that he would have to contend with the mutant team at some point, but not immediately – not until the Dominion knew where to send them. That would give him time to bring them over to his side. He had no choice in the matter; they were too formidable a force for him to allow them to be utilized against him.

Unfortunately, he would have to do it the hard way. Though he would have much preferred to have them of their own free will, he knew he could never convince them that the Dominion planned to betray them, even though it was the truth. They certainly wouldn't willingly help him capture the woman, not after she risked her life to heal Mulwray. No, naïve do-gooders that they were, the only way Damien could ever be sure of them was to have them under complete telepathic compulsion. He would have to lure them in, perhaps capture one to draw the others out. The feral, Shalimar Fox, was the most logical choice for this, as she was known to be susceptible that kind of attack. Once he had her, the others would fall into line whether they wanted to or not.

That left his main objective – Target Alpha. The Dominion wanted her just as badly as he did, a bright, shiny toy for their Creator to play with. The intriguing thing was that they knew precious little about her, just what they had gleaned from some old, scanty Genomex records. In fact, Damien probably knew more than they did, or he would as soon as Dr. Harrison was able to complete the preliminary testing on her DNA.

As for her husband, Damien knew he would have to tread warily. He wasn't really concerned about the man himself; they seemed to share the same mutant powers, but Damien knew his to be stronger. No, it was the organization surrounding him that gave Damien pause. The fact that so little was known about him screamed of covert connections on a grand scale. How else could he field such a highly trained and equipped paramilitary force without scrutiny from the authorities? What was the source of his revenue? How big was the security force surrounding him? Where did they get their training and weaponry? Most importantly, why had no one ever heard of him, alias or not?

And then there was the estate itself. Lexa Pierce had described a few of the security measures in place to her Council contact, but she couldn't have seen very much. No doubt there were other surprises around as well. In other words, one couldn't just waltz in and take the woman. Besides, there were probably other bases just as fortified; someone with such a powerful and clandestine organization would not have all his eggs in one basket. It would take a great deal of time, planning, preparation and resources to be able to pinpoint a current location and implement a successful strike. How obliging of the Dominion to establish long-term surveillance around the estate for the purpose of gathering such information. Damien saw no need to waste time and money duplicating their efforts. His own connection in the Council assured that anything they found out, he would soon know.

So for the time being, as much as Damien needed the woman for his ultimate plan, and as much as he wanted to pit his abilities against the man, the husband and wife would have to be put on the back burner temporarily. Dr. Harrison would just have to move forward with the data he had. Right now Damien had to concentrate on building up his own resources and keeping the Dominion at bay. It wouldn't be for long. Six months, he mused, at most a year, and he would have everything necessary to crush the Dominion. After that, he would find the woman and her child, if it survived. He stared into the dancing flames. Just a year, and he would own the world.

Shalimar was dreaming. She was standing alone on the deck of a schooner in full sail under a crystal blue sky. The ship seemed like a thing alive, riding the ocean swells up and down in a gentle rocking motion. The main mast was solid and sculpted beneath her hands; she clung to it, wrapping her body around it, savoring the strength of the thick timber which seemed to reach nearly to the heavens. A velvet ribbon of sunlight warmed her back; a soft tropical breeze tickled the top of her golden hair. Listening closely, she fancied she could hear the slow, deep thrum of the ocean itself, and she could smell the heady, masculine scent of the sea filling her nostrils. Shalimar felt like she could stay here forever. It was a lovely dream.

Dawn eventually crept into her room, teasing her to consciousness with dancing sprites of light tickling her eyelids. The dream faded, replaced by a much more unpleasant reality. As awareness grew she found that her senses were clamoring for her attention with all the tact and subtlety of a demented acid rock band. Her mouth tasted fuzzy and sour. She felt as stiff as a board. Her body was a mass of stings and aches.Her head was pounding. Her stomach was queasy. Even her pillow was moving. She groaned. Man, was she hung over! Why was that? Now she remembered. She couldn't sleep last night, and ended up drinking some tequila. Make that _lots_ of tequila.

No, wait. Something was pounding _outside_ her head as well as inside. A soft, measured drumbeat pulsated in her ear to match the throb of her aching cranium, which was rising and falling, gently raising and lowering her head in a slow, even rhythm. She could even still feel a soft, regular kiss of air brushing the top of her head. Well, that tied in with her dream about the ship. She supposed she really ought to move, to deal with one pounding at a time, but the very thought of motion made her feel ill. She snuggled closer to her body pillow. It felt inexpressibly good to her, warm and comfortable, and she could do with some comfort about now.

A niggling thought eventually wormed its way through her befuddlement. If the dream had faded, why was the section of pillow beneath her head still moving? Come to think of it, this was an awfully long, awfully firm body pillow. In fact, it didn't even feel like a pillow. Her fingers drifted a bit, gradually registering odd textures and contours in the surface that seemed familiar, but that she couldn't quite place.

Wait a minute. She didn't _have_ a body pillow. What was going on here? One eye cracked open cautiously, squinting in the painful light. She could see some sort of blurry indentation, like a little valley, just a couple of inches away, and beyond it the edge of a round, flat shape with a darker peak at its center. Color began to creep in as her vision focused further, a sort of tan-pink hue. It almost looked like…flesh. No, that couldn't be. Ridiculous. She scrunched her eye closed, then looked again.

It was flesh all right. Living, breathing, warm, decidedly masculine flesh, attached to a soundly sleeping, very real and essentially naked male body, draped like her in black percale sheets and a black and white reversible down comforter. Her bleary eye was looking at a well-developed male pectoral muscle across a valley of breastbone. Her unruly blond curls lay cushioned on its twin. A very strong, very familiar scent filled her nostrils.

Sudden realization thundered through the haze in her brain like a freight train roaring through a morning fog. Both eyes flew open wide and her head shot up, a feeling of stunned horror almost but not quite blotting out the bomb bursting behind her eyes. Something slid heavily off her shoulder and hit the mattress with a muted _thump_, exposing and cooling a stripe of skin along her back.

"Oh. My. God."

This wasn't her familiar, den-like shelf bed with its animal print bedding, and that was no body pillow she was entwined around. This was Brennan's room. She was in Brennan's bed. With Brennan. She slept with Brennan last night. Well, not precisely _slept_ with him, given that he was unconscious the whole time. She had used his bare chest as a pillow, her palm flattened across his washboard abs, and had been nestled up against him like a kitten seeking warmth, evidently even pulling his arm around her. She had some vague recollection of coming into his room to check on him, of laying an ear on his chest to listen to his heart beat for a moment. She remembered thinking how lulling it was, but nothing beyond that. She must have passed out.

_Brilliant deduction, Sherlock!_ Thank God Brennan was still asleep. She would have had a lot of explaining to do if he had awakened to find her in bed with him, particularly with him clad only in briefs and her wrapped around him in such a lover-like embrace.

_Lover-like?_ The sudden realization that she was still lying pressed against his body, one leg on top of his, her arm stretched across his sculpted stomach, sent Shalimar into a blind panic. She snatched her arm away as if his skin scalded her and scooted rapidly backward until she half fell over the edge of the bed, pulling the covers with her. Barely retaining the presence of mind to fling them back over Brennan to keep him warm, she bolted headlong from the room. It would have put a perfect capstone on this fiasco if she had run into Jesse or Lexa while coming out of Brennan's room dressed in nothing but her sexy little aquamarine teddy, but for once Murphy's Law decided not to strike. The corridor was deserted and silent. Shalimar scuttled to her room and darted inside, closing the door behind her. Panting, her head pounding like a jackhammer, her pulse galloping, she sagged against the door, the triangular metallic panel cool and hard against her forehead, fighting a wave of nausea. Her knees buckled and she sank slowly to the granite tile with a low, pitiful moan, thinking miserably that between her alcohol-induced idiocy and her crushing hangover, if there was any mercy in the universe the floor would just open up and swallow her whole.

Evidently the universe wasn't feeling particularly merciful today because the floor stayed solid. Shalimar propped her elbows on her knees and wrapped her arms around her throbbing head as if she could somehow keep her brain from leaking out her ears. Never again, she vowed dully. Never again would she touch tequila. It made her do bizarre things, think crazy thoughts that she never had before. What the hell had possessed her? She and Brennan were like family. Sure, they frequently indulged in some high-spirited horseplay, and verbally fenced with double-entendre remarks, but so what? Okay, and maybe she did feel a flutter or two in her stomach whenever she came across him working out, his hard muscles rippling beneath bare skin glinting with a fine sheen of sweat as he curled weights, his scent hot and arousing. Big deal. He was a handsome, virile, powerful man with a sexy, absolutely ripped body. She could admit that and appreciate the view without it meaning anything more. And yes, they both also had a wild streak, which helped them understand each other. But that was all there was to it. End of story. He probably felt the same way about her.

But did she subconsciously want more? Was that really why she was in his bed last night?

_Stop it!_ she commanded herself harshly, and winced at her own vehemence. _Don't even go there_. What happened was nothing more than an alcohol-induced overreaction to the trauma of Brennan nearly dying yesterday, of her actually feeling his heart stop. There was no reason to read anything more into it than that. It was just the booze. She would prove it by taking a large shot of the hangover cure that Adam invented, crawl into her own bed for a while, and sleep it off. When she awoke everything would be back to normal.

For some reason the thought made her feel cold all over.

_Author's Note: I had fun with this chapter, and I hope you enjoyed it too. Because of the constraints of the series, I couldn't actually put Shalimar and Brennan together at this time unless I cheated. So, of course, I cheated, putting in a catalyst that will force Shalimar to examine motives and feelings that she doesn't want to examine._

_I'll have one, possibly two more chapters to tie up loose ends and to set things up for two stories I have in the works: one, a Shalimar-centered story (about 'Chasing Shadows' –length) which will explore, among other things, her changing relationship with Brennan, and two, my version of what happened after "The Assault". _


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

_Damn you, Brennan, don't you do this! _

That was Shalimar's voice. Brennan recognized it in a detached sort of way, just as he recognized her agitated, even angry tone. Vaguely he wondered what it was that he shouldn't do. Whatever it was she sounded pretty adamant against him doing it. Well, okay, he decided with an aimless mental shrug. He wouldn't do it then, since it upset her so. Case closed.

He drifted along for a while in a gray, hazy state halfway between waking and slumber. Sometimes he dreamed, or at least thought he did; little snippets half remembered of being in excruciating pain; of Jesse kneeling over him, exhausted and in despair; of brilliant green eyes and a touch both soft and warm that made the pain melt away, and an obscure sort of sense of himself standing before the mouth of a cave, fighting fiercely, protecting someone within against a horde of attacking figures without faces. He had no idea who was in the cave, just the sense that it was someone small and helpless, and that it was vital that these things he was battling not get through. He fought and fought until his lungs were near bursting and he was ready to drop, but eventually the figures faded away. He stood there for a moment, swaying, waiting to see if the shadowy figures would come back, before finally collapsing, battered and completely spent. The gray enveloped him again, and he floated for a long time through a mist both opaque and timeless.

A small part of his mind, though; probably the part that governed curiosity, kept going back to Shalimar's words, idly passing the time pondering his almost transgression and wondering what it could have been. It had to be something serious to have disturbed her so severely, but he had no memory of it, which struck him as strange. Why wouldn't he remember something like that when he remembered – or thought he remembered – all that other stuff?

While he wondered he gradually became aware of an aching soreness that ran the length of his body, the sort that came from being in the same position for a very long time. Eventually he came to realize that he was lying on his back on something soft yet firm, like a mattress. His eyes cracked open to the familiar surroundings of his bedroom.

With awareness came a sharpening of the full-body ache. Groaning, he rolled overonto his side and started a series of isometric exercises, flexing and relaxing groups of anterior muscles in sequence, starting at his neck and shoulders and working all the way down to his feet. They felt tight, almost creaking from disuse, and protested his orders with a sort of pins-and-needles stinging.

His eyes felt gummy and clogged with sleep. Reaching up with the vague idea of clearing them, he brushed his jaw, encountering a pretty fair growth of stubble. He rubbed his eyes absently, then opened them again, lying still for a moment as the rest of his senses checked in.

He was in his own bed, clad only in briefs, although he had no recollection of how he got there. The lighting was semi-muted, suggesting that it was either post-dawn or pre-twilight. The clock on the nightstand read 5:12. His mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton and had the funkiest aftertaste. He was dying of thirst. Inhaling with what must have been the first deep breath he'd taken in about a week, he discovered that he was in definite need of a shower. There were other smells too; dust and antiseptic, a whiff of tequila and … something else, a fragrance of some kind that he couldn't quite identify; not exactly flowery like a lot of perfumes, although there was a touch of that, but light and almost spicy . Where did that come from? He sniffed his pillow, but that didn't appear to be the source. Whatever it was, it somehow made him think of Shalimar, like the scent of her hair. That was odd.

His stomach rumbled audibly, and he realized that he was ravenous. He could hear the normal background sounds of Sanctuary, but other than that, all was quiet. He started to push himself up on an elbow and felt a slight pulling sensation in the crook. Frowning, he glanced over and saw a small wad of cotton taped there, as from a needle insertion. What was that doing there? Well, that was easily taken care of. He scraped at the tape until he could loosen an edge, wincing a bit at the sting to his skin and the rip of his arm hair as it came free.

With that small chore completed he sat up, and immediately regretted it as the room swirled violently. He grasped his head in both hands, refusing to give into the vertigo. Why was he so dizzy? After a moment the lightheadedness started to recede. His scalp itched all over, so he scratched it. A cloud of dust and flecks of drywall rose from his hair. Where had that come from?

Wait a minute. Naxcon. The explosion; the one he tried to block. He remembered releasing every bit of electrical energy he could muster in one tremendous burst in an attempt to form a shield powerful enough to save them. There had been no time for thought, no way of knowing whether his experiment would work, or even if it _could_ work on this scale. The desperate gamble was pure reflex, the only thing he could think of that might possibly blunt enough of the force to save Shalimar. For himself he had no consideration. Truthfully, he had expected to die. Yet here he was, in his bedroom at Sanctuary, feeling no real pain, just some stiffness and a fair amount of lethargy. Well, there was also that dizziness thing, but that probably wasn't anything of importance. He yawned, feeling a sort of bemused satisfaction. His last-ditch effort evidently worked better than he had any right to hope for. Score one for cartoons.

Brennan rubbed his eyes again, then stilled as more tendrils of memory filtered through the haze. No, that couldn't be right. There had to be more to it. He remembered hitting the floor and clouds of dust billowing. There had been a sharp pain in the arm he had instinctively flung over his head, and he had a dim recollection of something maybe falling from the ceiling toward him. And then … nothing.

Obviously the thing had hit him. Just as obviously, it must have caused some damage. Since he was in no pain now, it followed that Jaryl had probably healed him again just as she had fixed his knee, and that he had been sleeping off the effects. Wondering how long he had been out, Brennan glanced again at the digital clock, this time taking in the date as well as the time. His shock helped chase away the lingering cobwebs. He had been out more than 24 hours.

Damn. He must have been injured pretty badly to have slept so long. That would explain his stiffness and fuzzy head. He stretched again, rolling his neck and shoulders, and worked his facial muscles, trying to coax some moisture into his arid mouth. He stopped as another, more urgent thought hit. What about Shalimar? Had she been hurt as well?

He swung his long legs over the edge of the bed, intending to leap to his feet, but then logic and further recollection, not to mention another, larger wave of dizziness, caught up. Shalimar had been behind him. His sense was that he did in fact rebuff the worst of the blast; it was the impact against his curtain of electrical energy that had knocked him down; abetted by weakness resulting from pouring out such a huge burst of energy, and it was debris from the ceiling that had fallen on him. Force from the explosion itself had not gotten through. It had been directed outward and upward. Shalimar should be fine.

He pushed to his feet and the room spun. He staggered, his knees buckling and his head swimming so that he had to reach out quickly to keep from falling on his face, his flailing hand knocking over the model of a vintage Indian motorcycle standing on the countertop next to his bed. He locked his elbow to brace himself, his eyes closing against the colored spots dancing before them. A chill rippled up his spine. He felt weak, drained, as if he'd had the flu or something. The thought crossed his mind to lie down again and was immediately rejected. To hell with this invalid crap. He was up, and he was going to stay up. Period. End of discussion. It was time to remind his rebellious body just who was in control here. He would feel better once he was moving, got the blood circulating again. He straightened with an effort and opened his eyes. The merry-go-round that was his room ground reluctantly to a halt.

His stomach growled again. The fact that he hadn't eaten for more than a full day was no doubt contributing to this general feeling of weakness. He shivered again, a sensation which decided his course of action. He would hit the shower first, letting the hot water chase away the chills and stimulate his circulation, and then it was time for some serious foraging. The others could fill him in then. Yawning hugely, leaning on various pieces of furniture as he went, he made his way carefully toward the bathroom.

A slowly expanding curtain of silence drifted through a certain upscale office building as the clock rolled over to six. Most of the employees had left for the day; there were only a few stragglers still puttering around their work stations. The growing quiet was a soothing balm to the man in the executive suite. He leaned forward in his tall, very expensive leather chair to peer intently at the data streaming across the large, glowing plasma screen connected to his laptop docking station. From time to time he made notes on his customized Blackberry, the pointer tapping away as if it had a life of its own, moving across the tiny screen untouched by any hand.

His head lifted a few seconds before the soft knock even sounded on his door. It slid open at his glance with a muted _swish_. A tall, thin man in a white lab coat stepped in tentatively, blinking owlishly behind a pair of nerdy glasses.

"Good evening, Dr. Harrison." Damien Acosta welcomed his Chief Geneticist with an easy smile.

"Mr. Acosta …I saw your light on ….if I'm interrupting something…"

"Not at all, Doctor. Please, come in."

Damien gestured to one of the comfortable chairs in front of his desk. Harrison scuttled nervously to one and sat down. Clearly the scientist wasn't used to being received so cordially in the executive suite, Damien mused. He was too used to the lethal caprices of his old boss, Mason Eckhart.

"I was about to pour myself a glass of wine," he continued, gesturing to the expensive crystal decanter surrounded by matching glasses on a credenza off to the side. "Would you care for some? It's an excellent vintage."

Harrison stammered something that Damien took to be an affirmative. He glanced over at the set. The stopper on the decanter removed itself, hovering in mid-air as its host rose and disgorged some of its deep red contents into two glasses. It settled itself carefully back into place, the stopper returned to its harbor, and the two glasses sailed gently across the room, parting to present themselves to each man in turn.

Damien watched with quiet amusement as the scientist gingerly plucked his glass out of the air, glancing nervously at his superior as he waited for Damien to take the first sip while trying not to seem obvious about it. The mutant wasn't sure if Harrison was more unsettled by the display of his powers or the offering of the wine. In Eckhart's world such an invitation was just as likely to precede a death by poisoning as anything else.

Damien had no such plan. The scientist was far too valuable an asset, both in regard to his personal well-being and his overall plan, to be squandered. As such, Damien had gone to great lengths to win the man's trust and loyalty, plying him with money and perks, the best in laboratory facilities, and even taking him somewhat into his confidence, treating him more like a partner than merely an employee. Harrison was one of the few who knew he was a mutant, and until today one of the very few that knew he was a telepath as well as a telekinetic. It was simply a matter of practicality. Damien knew that at some point he would need expert help to stabilize his genetic structure, someone he could trust. At the same time, by letting the scientist know about his second power, he was also tacitly advising him that he would be well aware of any treachery being hatched long before it could be implemented. Thus, there was no need to keep the scientist in line by fear or other coercion, as Eckhart had done. Once Harrison realized this they would be well on their way to establishing a long and profitable relationship. Their respective goals meshed nicely.

Damien understood that Harrison was not interested in the kind of power he himself craved. All the man cared about was his research. As long as he was supplied with funding, equipment, trained personnel and the freedom to work without the sword of Damocles hanging over his head, the geneticist was a happy camper. Damien saw no reason not to indulge him, going out of his way to show his appreciation for the man's work whenever possible. He had gotten precious little of that at Genomex, and Damien was well aware of how addictive, and motivating, something as simple as appreciation could be. It was also cheap insurance.

The scientist sipped his wine cautiously, fidgeting a little in his chair. Damien tried to set him at ease.

"I stopped by your laboratory earlier to see how you were settling in, but you were so busy I didn't want to disturb you," he said smoothly, "Tell me, do you find your new facilities here at Providence adequate?"

Harrison almost sputtered on his wine, but recovered quickly.

"Oh yes, quite adequate."  
"Because if something is lacking, you need only ask."

"I…appreciate that, sir."

Damien set his wine down on the desk and leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers to give the impression that he was giving the scientist his whole attention.

"Now then, Doctor, what can I do for you this evening?"

Dr. Harrison set his glass down with a nervous snap that almost made Damien wince for the delicate crystal.

"You wanted to know about my preliminary testing of Target Alpha's DNA as soon as the results were in."

"So I did. Please, proceed."

"We were correct in our initial hypothesis. Her DNA is completely stable."

"So you think it's possible you can use it to solve the problem of instability in the graftees – and perhaps all mutants?"

Harrison shook his head. "Not without much more research," he said, "I certainly anticipate being able to lengthen the lifespan of our test subjects in the short term, but it's not a complete fix. They'll still burn out before their time."

"What seems to be the problem?"

"My scan of Target Alpha reveals a duality in her genetic makeup," the scientist explained, "She is both psionic and molecular. As you know, that's not at all uncommon. In her case, though, the molecular side is presented by a nervous system far more advanced and sophisticated in both number and design than the average human's. The psionic side connects and controls. It's that interaction which makes her abilities work, and what I need to be able to study in order to come up with any kind of viable treatment. Without that precise information, I'm just shooting in the dark."

Damien rubbed two long fingers along the base of his chin.

"Tell me something, Doctor," he said, "What if you were to graft some of her DNA into a test subject? Do you think you could recreate her powers, at least long enough to advance your research?"

Harrison's eyes narrowed sharply as he considered the suggestion at length.

"Doubtful," he said finally, "A large portion of her ability is based on the physicality of her advanced nervous system. It is highly unlikely that grafting her DNA into another strand would stimulate the sort of massive nerve growth required to duplicate her powers successfully. Oh, I don't doubt that such a subject might be engineered to attain a least a fraction of her ability, and might also be of use in helping the overall stabilization of other graftees, but such a person would be limited in depth of ability. He or she would be useful for experimentation, but I could not take my research to the level you desire with that resource alone."

The scientist leaned forward urgently, his hands clasped together.

"Mr. Acosta, for your plans to succeed, I must have that woman back."

Damien sighed in frustration.

"I understand, Doctor, but I'm afraid that your request is problematic in the short term," he said, "In the first place, the estate that Mutant X delivered her to is heavily guarded. At the moment we have neither the intelligence resources nor the manpower necessary to affect a recovery. Second and more importantly, Ms. Pierce reported to the Dominion that the woman was in very bad shape when they dropped her off. It could be that she overreached her abilities when healing Mr. Mulwray. We just don't know at this time."

"What about the child?" Harrison asked quickly.

"Again, unknown," Damien replied, "Ms. Pierce made no mention of the child in her report for some reason. I don't believe the Dominion even knows about it."

The scientist flopped back in his chair, his disappointment apparent.

"That's something, I suppose," he ventured, his lips pressed together in a thin line.

Damien couldn't blame him. He was disappointed as well, but he was also strategist enough to realize that setbacks happened in a lot of business enterprises, particularly ones as complicated as this. The important thing was not to lose sight of the main prize, to keep working toward one's goals until success was achieved, no matter what. This delay was nothing. He would build up his forces and come back twice as strong. Then he could make plans to reacquire the woman, assuming she survived her ordeal. Given that she made it home alive, he rather thought she would. The child was a separate issue. In the meantime, there were other matters to be dealt with.

"What about the other DNA samples you were able to collect?"

The geneticist shrugged.

"We have viable samples from both Shalimar Fox and Brennan Mulwray," he said, "I believe I can replicate enough DNA to copy their powers several times over. As for the sample of the woman's husband from the roof…" Harrison hesitated, appearing to almost shrink within himself, like a dog uncertain of whether a kick was forthcoming. "The heat and backwash from Mutant X's jet caused severe contamination to the sample. I'm afraid it's completely useless."

Damien shrugged. In truth the news wasn't all that disappointing. It might have been nice to have the sample on hand for study, but he shied away from having either of his powers replicated in any graftee. Such powers were dangerous in the wrong hands, and Damien preferred to avoid any chance of competition.

Encouraged by his employer's placid reaction to bad news, Harrison spoke up again quickly, as if hoping to redeem himself.

"On the plus side, Mr. Acosta, because of the adaptive nature of Target Alpha's abilities, I believe we may be able to take the research in an additional direction," he said, "I would like your permission to begin using limited amounts of her DNA in experiments with other mutant strands."

Damien glanced at him curiously.

"To what end?"

"I want to see if I can use it to ….influence…certain behaviors, perhaps replicate certain admirable traits, in other DNA strands."

That got the telekinetic's attention in a big way. He bolted upright in his elegantly appointed chair.

"Do you mean to say that you can …program…certain traits into the DNA?" he demanded.

"Well…it's only a theory," the scientist confessed, "But I believe it is worth exploring."

Damien fell back, all hint of pretense gone as he marveled at the incredible thought. If Harrison could program in such traits as total obedience and unswerving loyalty, there would be no limit to his power. He could have an empire such as the world had never even conceived of, held together by a super-powered force incapable of turning against him. The possibilities were mind-boggling. Damien broke into a rare grin.

"By all means, Doctor, you have my permission to explore this …intriguing…avenue in addition to the lines already in motion. Requisition whatever additional resources you require. Conduct your research carefully. You may be on the verge of the most astounding breakthrough in the history of science."

Harrison beamed.

"Yes sir, I'll get started at once." He rose and scuttled toward the door. Once there, though, he paused.

"And the woman?"

"If she lives - soon, Doctor. Soon."

The kitchen was redolent with the appetizing smell of baking lasagna. Jesse dumped a bag of frozen baby garden peas into the bubbling saucepan and put the lid on. Dinner was almost ready. He lifted the lid of a second saucepan, picked up a spoon and dipped it into the alfredo sauce. He blew on it twice to cool it, then tasted. It was coming along nicely.

"Smells good."

Jesse turned at the sound, a welcoming grin lighting his face. Brennan stood framed in the doorway.

"Well, look who's finally awake! We were hoping you would be up in time for dinner. How do you feel?"

"Oh, man, I'm starving!" The long, hot shower and moving in general had done Brennan a world of good. He reached up and seized the lintel in a backhanded grip. Arm and shoulder muscles bunched and swelled against the sleeves of his black tee shirt as he executed an effortless pull-up, levering himself horizontally until his chest nearly touched the wood. He lowered, swung once and arched off, landing a few feet inside the kitchen.

"When do we eat?" he asked hungrily, slapping his stomach.

Jesse laughed. "In about fifteen minutes." He stepped to the gleaming steel refrigerator, opened it, and removed a large stainless steel bowl of full of torn lettuce. This he set down on the adjacent counter and began pulling small dishes of already chopped salad ingredients out as well. Brennan wandered over to the main oven, pulled down the door, and took an appreciative sniff.

"Lasagna!" Brennan beamed with approval. Jesse was a pretty good cook when it came to Italian food, and scratch lasagna was his signature dish. It was also a lot of trouble to make, so they didn't get it very often. The big man noted the size of the pan and cocked a quizzical eyebrow at his friend.

"That looks like just about enough for me, but what are the rest of you going to eat?"

Jesse grinned. "We'll also have Caesar salad, toasted ravioli, tortellini alfredo, stuffed mushrooms, breaded fried okra, baby peas and garlic bread. And for dessert, Shalimar made German chocolate cake. It clashes with the rest of the food, but she insisted; said it was your favorite. She and Lexa are downstairs trying to decide on a wine."

"Big dinner," Brennan commented, closing the oven door, "What's the occasion?"

"I knew you would be really hungry when you woke up." Jesse rummaged in a drawer for a set of salad tongs. "I was healed once by an empath too, remember? In fact…" He found what he was looking for, set them aside and started dumping the contents of the small containers into the salad bowl. "…as it turns out, the same empath."

Brennan paused in the act of inhaling the aroma from the alfredo sauce to shoot Jesse a surprised look.

"No kidding? You mean that time Shal and I found you shot in that abandoned factory, like two years ago? I thought that one had some Zodiac name or something. That was Jaryl?"

Jesse nodded. "She called herself 'Gemini'. You remember at the time we thought it might have been some kind of code name."

"Yeah. So what was up with that?"

Jesse shrugged a little too nonchalantly to be natural. "I don't know. I never got the chance to ask her. Things got a little hairy after you went down."

Brennan pulled a chair from the table, reversed it and sat down, his arms folded across its back. He watched Jesse shake a box of croutons into the salad and begin to mix everything together.

"Yeah, I was wondering about that," he said thoughtfully, "I remember getting knocked down when the blast hit my electrical field; I remember a huge cloud of dust and seeing something falling toward me. After that…" He waved his hand dismissingly. "I couldn't make out what it was, but it must have hit me. What was it, and how much damage did it do?"

Jesse sobered. He paused in tossing the salad, as if trying to decide how to respond.

Then he put the salad aside and went to a side counter where two loaves of crusty, freshly baked Italian bread awaited him on a cutting board. He pulled a saw-tooth knife from a nearby knife block.

"It wasn't just one; a couple of chunks of debris fell on you," he explained, looking away, "Part of the force of the blast was redirected upward, blowing a big hole in the ceiling." He seized the bread in a too-firm grip that left indentations from his fingers in the crust and started slicing with what seemed to be unwarranted vigor. "You were seriously messed up. Fractured arm, compound fracture of the leg, some broken ribs. Jaryl healed you."

Brennan's eyes narrowed. What Jesse described certainly fit the definition of 'seriously messed up', but he could tell there was more to it. Jesse seemed to be trying awfully hard not to tell him something.

"There was more, wasn't there?" he said with quiet certainty, "What else? The truth, Jess."

Jesse took a deep breath and released it slowly. He laid the knife down carefully, gathering his thoughts. That awful whisper, that whole scene of him performing CPR had haunted his dreams last night, but this time Brennan's ghost had been there, saying goodbye. He still didn't know if what he heard had been his imagination or his friend. On the one hand, there were thousands of stories of people having what scientists called an out-of-body episode, and certainly his own experiences – hell, his very existence – showed that there were an awful lot of weird things out there that were not only possible, but very, very real. Also, it was typical of Brennan to insist that Jesse forget him and get the girls out of danger. But on the other hand, why would Brennan say goodbye and then come back? Finally he turned to face his friend, his hands braced on the edge of the counter.

"Do you remember anything else after the explosion? Anything at all?"

Brennan was baffled by this odd question, and it showed.

"Do I remember anything? Jesse, I was unconscious."

Jesse looked away, closing his eyes briefly against the nightmare playing once again through his mind, seeing the spreading blood, feeling again the multiple fractures and the unnatural give under his hands as he worked. The unreality of the whole situation was something he still hadn't come to grips with. Here Brennan was, sitting hale and hearty in the kitchen at Sanctuary, normal as could be, when just yesterday he was lying nearly crushed to death at Naxcon, with Jesse trying frantically to pump life back into his bleeding, broken body.

"What happened, Jess?" Brennan whispered.

Jesse looked back at his friend, his gaze intent and piercing.

"You weren't just unconscious, Brennan," he said finally, "That was a piece of steel I-beam that fell on you. The whole left side of your chest was caved in. Your lung was collapsed. You were hemorrhaging internally. You…" He drew a ragged breath, his knuckles glaring white as his grip on the counter edge tightened, his face reflecting the horror of that moment. "Your heart stopped. For a while there …a long while …you were dead. Shalimar and I performed CPR on you. We had just gotten you going again when Matt and Jaryl arrived."

That rocked Brennan like a line drive right between the eyes. He could see that Jesse was as shaken as he was. A dozen responses raced through his head, some profound, some rather earthy, but what actually slipped out of his mouth was pure reflex.

"I hope Shal was the one doing the breathing."

Jesse stared at him in sheer disbelief. Then something seemed to shift inside and the two of them began to laugh, the kind of I-don't-believe-you-just-said-that laugh that fractured awkward moments and forged bonds the world over. They were just catching their breath when the door to the wine cellar opened.

"Well, I see Sleeping Beauty has awakened," Lexa remarked, coming through the door with a bottle of red wine in her hand. Shalimar followed her through.

"I told you I heard him up here," she said.

Brennan rose from his chair as the women entered. Lingering briefly on Lexa's black eye, his gaze slid to Shalimar, looking her over closely for any sign of injury. Something about the way she walked was off somehow. He couldn't quite put his finger on the difference, just that the sinuous grace that usually bespoke her every movement wasn't quite there. He met her eyes, searching for further clues.

Shalimar kept the welcoming smile pasted on her face through sheer willpower. Brennan's intense scrutiny unnerved her to no end. Why was he looking at her like that? Was it possible that he had awakened earlier than she thought, had actually found her in his bed? No, that couldn't be. He hadn't moved that whole time. Still, she felt as jittery as a cat in a roomful of rocking chairs under his gaze, worse even than the moment earlier in the afternoon when it suddenly struck her that Jesse might well have gone into Brennan's room during the night to check on him. Fortunately her molecular brother had seemed completely natural when she met him as he was leaving for the grocery store. It was obvious he didn't know what happened. She had begun to think that she had skated through her drunken peccadillo unscathed.

Until now.

Lexa set the wine bottle on the table and went in search of appropriate glasses. Shalimar tensed as Brennan crossed the kitchen to stand close beside her.

"Are you all right?" he asked in a low voice. He found one of the bigger cuts on the back of her arm and touched it lightly.

She nearly wilted in relief when she realized he was referring to any possible injuries from the explosion he had blocked, and nothing else. A genuine smile blossomed.

"I'm fine."

Brennan wasn't convinced. There were several cuts visible around and through her cheetah-print crop top, some just scratches, but some looked fairly deep. None of them appeared to be consequential, though, he was glad to see. She was probably just a bit stiff. That would account for the difference he saw in her body language.

"Those are glass cuts from before, when I was fighting the other feral," Shalimar explained. She felt herself relax, secure in the knowledge that her idiocy remained unexposed. She could respond to him as she always did. As far as he was concerned, nothing between them had changed. "Your shield worked – well, for the most part. You brought the ceiling down on top of yourself."

He grimaced. "Yeah, Jesse told me. I guess that move needs some work."

"I guess it does." She gave him a light little poke in the stomach with her elbow. "And if you ever scare me like that again…"

"I know, I know," he interrupted with a chuckle, "You'll kick my ass."

She gave him a startled look, getting nervous all over again. He had heard that? What else did he hear?

"What? Like you haven't threatened that at least a dozen times before?" Ignoring her continued stare in favor of more immediate and important matters, he draped his arm around her shoulders and guided her toward the cupboard where the tableware was stacked.

"Come on - I'll get the plates, you get the silverware," he said, noting that Lexa was now moving to help Jesse get the food ready to serve, "The sooner we get the table set, the sooner we eat, and right now I could eat a horse."

Brennan's eyes were beginning to look heavy. Shalimar glanced at Jesse and Lexa, and with a tiny jerk of her head indicated the elemental. They both nodded fractionally; they noticed it, too. Shal placed her hand lightly on Brennan's shoulder.

"Looks like someone is fading in the stretch."

Brennan roused at her gentle touch, opening his eyes wider.

"What are you talking about?" he protested, "I just slept for over 24 hours."

"And you need to sleep some more," Jesse returned. As if to emphasize the point, Brennan leaned back, his chair creaking loudly as he balanced it on two legs while stretching his body to its fullest for several seconds, his muscular arms extended over his head. A huge yawn accompanied the stretch, long and wide enough to make his eyes water. He brought the chair back to all four legs with a thump. The others exchanged knowing looks.

"You see?" Jesse said, "You expended one hell of a lot of energy with that circus stunt you pulled, not to mention the aftereffects of accelerated healing. That kind of stuff takes a huge toll on your energy reserves. Believe me, I know - and now you've got a full stomach on top of it. You need to hit the sack."

Brennan stood up, wiping the moisture from his eyes and giving his head a little shake. He picked up his plate and Shalimar's. "I'm fine. You guys go on; I'll do the cleanup."

Lexa snorted derisively. "Of course you will." She reached for one of the plates in his hand, but he pulled it away from her grasp.

"Seriously," he insisted, "I know I missed my turn yesterday. You guys go relax. I've got this."

He spoiled the effect by taking an awkward step and bumping into his chair. Shalimar snickered, sidestepping quickly to brace him with her two strong hands flattened on his broad back. Jesse rolled his eyes and made an exasperated sound.

"Look, just do me a favor, willya?" He snatched the plates from Brennan's hands before the big man could react. "Go to bed before you pass out. I don't think my back is up to hauling your sorry ass around again."

"Again?"

"Jesse carried you out of Naxcon," supplied Shalimar helpfully.

"And damn near ruptured a disc doing it," Jesse grumbled.

Brennan's eyebrows raised. Given his size and the distance involved, that couldn't have been easy for the smaller man. He clapped a hand on Jesse's shoulder.

"Thanks, brother." The tone was bantering, but the earnest look in his eyes was anything but, encompassing much more than Jesse carrying him out of Naxcon. Jesse returned it in full measure, clasping the other's hand warmly.

"Any time."

Shalimar took Brennan's wrist and tugged gently.

"I hate to break up the display of male bonding, but you need to get some rest." Brennan allowed her to lead him for maybe two steps before the perverse imp of mischief that was never far from the surface of his personality showed its face. He slipped his arm free and turned back.

"I'll just help clear the table," he said, knowing full well that she wouldn't stand still for that. He was right. She seized his arm, spun him around and gave his shoulder a push. Grinning, he pivoted out of it and back toward the table. Jesse had to step out of the way, shaking his head in amusement at their familiar antics, as Shalimar ducked around the big man and got both hands on his back, propelling him through the kitchen doorway. She continued with intermittent shoves and pokes to shepherd the recalcitrant elemental toward the living quarters, the two of them laughing as Brennan insisted on making a game of pretending to turn back. He kept trying to block her strikes and dart around her, but between her native speed and his slowed reflexes he was mostly unsuccessful.

"Go on, you," she insisted, prodding him with one last jab when she finally managed to get him through his open door. "Bedtime." She softened her order with a fond smile.

"Okay, okay, I'm going!" he laughed, finally acquiescing with good humor. His voice dropped to a teasing whisper, a roguish grin spreading on his face.

"You wouldn't want to come tuck me in …?" He hunched his shoulder and ducked reflexively, expecting her to pounce on him, a typical response whenever he made a double-entendre comment like that. In doing this he missed the startled deer-in-the-headlights expression that came over Shalimar's face. She had to turn away to hide the sudden burn rising to her cheeks.

"You wish," she answered with what she hoped was the flippant tone he expected. She marched off.

Brennan sat down on his bed and crossed an ankle over his thigh as he prepared to remove the first shoe. The horseplay with Shalimar had perked him up a bit, but he had to admit that he felt tired and heavy. It seemed strange that he should be so lethargic, even after a big meal, when he'd slept more than twenty-four hours previously. Jesse's explanation about the energy drain made sense to him, but he would have thought that his day-long crash would have put the scales back in balance. To be this sleepy still seemed a bit over the top. Maybe almost dying had something to do with it.

Almost dying. Actually dying, really – for a couple of minutes anyway, according to Jesse. He couldn't quite figure out how to process that. On the one hand, growing up on the streets had instilled a strong streak of fatalism in him. Everyone died, sooner or later. He had accepted long ago that, given his lifestyle and the ever-present threat of mutant instability, the odds of him dying of old age were pretty slim. The important thing was not to surrender to death. You kept fighting for as long as you could, because life was worth living, a gift too easily lost to ever take for granted.

Part of the problem was the sense of unreality, the disconnect. He hadn't had time yesterday to feel anything, though it wasn't as if he didn't have any basic reference points. This wasn't the first time he had been near death. Actually, he seemed to make a habit of it, more so than the other members of the team. Most of the other times he'd had some awareness of what was going on, particularly the last time just a few months ago when his powers had spun out of control. He had felt his body ripping itself apart, and went through the gamut of emotions – denial, desperation, anger, and most of all overwhelming fear as he waited for the inevitable. He had fought back the only way he knew how by tracking down a kidnapper, determined to win one last small victory by making his last hours count for something, refusing to succumb until a teenaged girl was delivered safely home. But evidently fate or the universe or whatever wasn't quite done with him yet, because Emma De Lauro had been able to restore the vital balance in his genetic structure with her telempathic powers.

Yesterday he had been spared again, this time by Jaryl. She healed him – probably saved his life. What had that been like for her, as badly as he was hurt? There had been a lot of talk and banter during dinner, but now that he thought about it, nothing much had been said about her. Why not? Brennan had been too distracted by the hot, appetizing food and the camaraderie to notice the omission at the time. His hand slowed on the laces of his loosened shoe, and an uneasy feeling stole over him. During the meal Jesse had retold the story of his first meeting with the empath for Lexa's benefit. Didn't he say that Jaryl _absorbed_ injuries?

His veins filled with ice at the thought. Broken bones, the side of his chest crushed, hemorrhaging, collapsed lung, probably other internal injuries – how could she have absorbed all that from him? Unless it was just an energy thing, not the actual injuries themselves. That thought didn't make him feel any better. If he was this tired after sleeping for twenty-four hours, with his size and strength, what kind of shape was she in?

He had to know if she was all right. Jesse would probably have a way of getting in touch with Matt so he could find out. Brennan retied his shoe and pushed off the bed.

Standing at the kitchen counter forking the leftover ravioli into a smaller dish, Jesse shot a covert glance at Lexa, who was dithering near the table. She had been uncharacteristically quiet all through dinner, her defenses very plainly raised for some reason. What could be the cause? He knew that she hadn't really settled into the team yet, and suspected that she still felt rather like an outsider to their small, close-knit group. All the attention and affection showered on Brennan during dinner probably hammered that point home. It was apparent to him that Lexa hadn't known a lot of affection in her life; that could be one of the reasons she had so many walls built around her.

What wasn't so apparent was why he was so interested in breaching those walls, yet he was – very interested, in fact. He had been trying to think of different ways to approach her, to get her to open up, but she had proven quite adroit at evasion. It would take time and patience, but maybe now with Shal and Brennan otherwise occupied he might have a chance to take that first step. Now all he had to figure out was how to broach the subject.

She was standing quite still next to the table with a pair of wine glasses in her hands, lost in thought. Jesse dug a hand into the pocket of his trousers and pulled out a shiny new penny. Balancing it on his thumb, he flipped it expertly in an arc toward her. The resounding ring of the coin bouncing off the glass jolted her out of her reverie. He walked over, retrieved the copper from where it had landed on the table, and presented it to her without actually speaking the classic penny-for-your-thoughts line.

"They're not worth that much." She brushed past him and took the glasses over to the counter. He pocketed the penny, picked up the nearly empty lasagna pan and followed her.

"Lexa, what's bothering you?" he asked solicitously.

"Nothing."

Outside the kitchen, Brennan came to a halt just three paces from the door. It sounded like Jesse was trying to have a heart-to-heart discussion with their prickly new teammate, and he was loath to interrupt. Lexa needed to learn how to connect with her new housemates, and although he would have thought Shalimar would have been a likelier candidate for her to open up to, being the only other woman on the team, perhaps the feral's territorial tendencies precluded that. That didn't leave her a whole lot of options. Brennan had taken a small step with her yesterday – was it only yesterday? It appeared now that Jesse was taking a turn. As disturbed as he was about Jaryl's possible condition, this was important too, for the sake of the team. He parked one broad shoulder against the wall. His question could wait for a few minutes.

Lexa stepped around Jesse and returned to the table for the other two wine glasses. The molecular sighed in quiet frustration. There were those walls again. Patience, he reminded himself. He had known this wouldn't be easy. Maybe if he went at it from a different direction, at least get her talking, he might eventually get some answers. There was something he had wanted to ask her since yesterday, but between everyone sleeping in this morning, him making a grocery run for the lasagna makings and then actually cooking dinner, he hadn't really had the chance. It might make a good opening.

"Okay, then if you don't mind my asking, what was that all about with Matt yesterday in the Helix?"

"And if I do mind you asking?" she shot back over her shoulder.

He returned her look steadily. Silence stretched between them as they finished clearing the table together, bringing all the dishes back to the counter. Jesse opened the dishwasher and started loading it. She handed him a plate before he could straighten and reached for another. Brennan, thinking that their conversation was over, took a step forward but stopped when Lexa spoke again.

"He shouldn't have left her like that," she said finally. She had been brooding about it most of the day, the image of Matt levitating through the ceiling replaying over and over in her mind, although for the life of her she couldn't understand why it should bother her so. She was a professional. These people were strangers to her. It was none of her business.

Except…she had seen some truly horrific things while at Genomex, ghastly results of experiments gone wrong. Quite a number of the research subjects were children, some of which were conceived in test tubes. No child should have to go through that…go through what she and her twin brother went through. Of course, Genomex was gone now, but she couldn't imagine this Damien Acosta being much different. Jaryl had escaped that fate, only to suffer one of the worst tragedies that could befall a woman, and although Lexa had no personal experience along those lines, she couldn't help but feel an unaccustomed pang of sympathy for her. It was so unfair. Lexa felt the need to blame someone, and as illogical as it may be, Matt was handy. What was a husband for if not to protect his wife? What was a father for if not to protect his children? As powerful as Matt was, and with all his resources, why couldn't he have prevented this from happening?

Jesse took the plate and cocked his head curiously. That wasn't at all what he expected. Was Ms. Ice actually feeling something for someone else? That was interesting. He probed cautiously.

"Are you saying he shouldn't have left because Jaryl was pregnant?"

That brought Brennan up short, as stunned as if he had just been hit over the head with a two-by-four. Pregnant? Jaryl hadn't looked pregnant. And what was that about Matt leaving? Oh yes – now he remembered. Matt had levitated through the ceiling, seeking a high vantage point so he could cover the others and keep a lookout for reinforcements coming from outside. Brennan frowned. He must be missing some pertinent parts of the story. Matt wouldn't have taken off if Jaryl was pregnant. Would he?

Brennan shook his head. Something was wrong here. The whole thing didn't make sense. Those were life-threatening injuries Jaryl had absorbed from him. She certainly couldn't have done that if she was pregnant; it would put her baby at tremendous risk. Besides, no husband in his right mind would allow his expectant wife to take such a gamble. Jesse must be mistaken about her condition.

He came out of his funk when he realized that Lexa was still speaking.

"Matt said he thought that she would recover 'in time'," she was saying to Jesse, "And remember what he said about what it costs her to use her powers?"

Jesse nodded.

"I've been thinking about his choice of words."

Jesse straightened, his body tensing. "Go on."

Lexa answered slowly. She understood the personal connection he felt with the empath. This wasn't going to be easy for Jesse to hear. She tried to think of a way to break it to him more gently. Unfortunately, there really wasn't an easy way.

"You didn't really have the chance to see her after you left with Brennan," she told him, "Jaryl knew Acosta was coming. She tried to get up, but didn't make it. Something … happened to her. She screamed and collapsed. Her body was rigid and all curled up. She looked even worse than Brennan had. To tell you the truth, I was surprised we even got her back to the Helix alive."

She hesitated. Jesse's hand closed on hers; he took the serving dish she apparently forgot she was holding from her and set it on the counter. A feeling of dread started to coil in his belly.

"What are you trying to say?"

"It's just that she absorbed so much damage from Brennan all at once," she continued reluctantly, "Maybe it was because she had to rush things when Acosta arrived, or maybe it was because she had to delay her own healing for so long. Remember what Matt said about organ damage and toxins spreading, about unintended consequences?"

The feeling of dread in Jesse's gut was increasing. Lexa was leading up to something, something awful. He braced himself unconsciously.

"Yeah."

"The thing is, when she collapsed ….she was clutching her stomach."

Jesse finally saw where she was going with this, and a large chunk of ice plummeted into his stomach. All the blood drained from his face.

"Oh, God – she miscarried."

Lexa nodded sadly.

"Shalimar thinks so, too." They had discussed it briefly in the wine cellar. Lexa thought of the way Matt knelt over Jaryl in the Helix, his head bowed low. "And given how their minds are linked, Matt must have known what happened."

Outside the kitchen, Brennan felt like he'd been kicked in the gut with a steel boot, actually staggering back a step from the emotional impact. Bile burned hot in his throat, and for a moment he was afraid he was going to be physically sick. Jaryl lost her baby because of him?

"I've just been running what-ifs in my head," Lexa went on, "What if Matt hadn't left her? Would she have had to rush things so much? And then there was the trip back to the Helix – Shalimar had no choice, but there's no telling how much damage the jolting caused when she ran while carrying Jaryl. If Matt had stayed with her, he could have prevented that. "

"I'm not so sure that's true," Jesse responded slowly, "Matt gave us a lot of cover from where he was; shielding the front, taking the heat while Shal and I cleared the back, and was still able to give us a warning we otherwise would not have had. Instead of getting out in a running battle, we would have still been stuck in that storage room when Acosta arrived. None of us would have gotten out."

He finished loading the dishwasher, closed the door and started the cycle.

"Besides, being that close to Jaryl while she worked on Brennan would have been distracting to say the least," he continued, "It can't be easy for him to see – maybe even feel – Jaryl go through what she does when she uses her powers. I mean, she's an empath, and as you pointed out, their minds are linked. Some of that has to come through, especially when she's extended as far as she was yesterday. He might not have been able to keep his shield for as long as he did if he stayed in such close proximity with her. Then there's the reverse – how much of the pounding his shield was taking would have gotten through to her?" He shook his head. "We just don't know enough about their connection and how it works to be able to judge."

Lexa considered that, a sour expression on her face. Much as she hated to admit it, Jesse had a point. But he wasn't through yet.

"There's something else you're forgetting as well."

"What's that?"

Jesse's voice lowered sadly.

"It was his child, too."

Brennan reeled away from the kitchen, his gut churning, and stumbled blindly toward the hanger. Maybe Lexa was wrong. Maybe Jesse was wrong. _Please, God, let them be wrong!_ Maybe Jaryl wasn't pregnant to begin with.

He had to know the truth, and there was only one way to get it. He had to find her, to see for himself. He would go to that estate where they had dropped them off. The Helix's navigation system would have the coordinates. He didn't know what he would do once he got there, but one thing he did know. He had to face what he had done to her – and then try to find some way to live with himself afterward.

If he could.


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Pale moonlight splashed over the gleaming hood of the jet-black Mustang as it hurtled down the two-lane blacktop toward the estate where Matt and Jaryl had been dropped off the day before. Brennan Mulwray's eyes were squarely on the road unwinding before him, but the sleek road machine might just as well have been on autopilot for all the notice he took of anything beyond the essentials of keeping it gobbling up the miles toward his destination. The coordinates taken from the Helix were a good distance west of the city, past the suburbs and through the inky darkness of the more rural areas. He had been driving for more than an hour at speeds well past the posted limit, and though signs of habitation and/or commerce were now few and far between, he still wasn't there yet. Man, he was really getting out in the boonies. Evidently Matt liked his privacy.

The Helix would have gotten him there much quicker, but Brennan had chosen the Mustang for this trip on purpose. In the first place, the others would have heard the airship prepping for takeoff, and he didn't want anyone to try to stop him. The lesser sound of a car engine starting was more common and wouldn't travel as far. With luck, the others might not even know he was gone. He also didn't want to have to explain himself to his anxious teammates, and he sure didn't want anyone to follow him. To that end he had already slipped his comlink ring into his pocket, which would make tracking him difficult should someone – most likely Shalimar – discover his absence. He could explain or apologize later as needed. Right now, though, this was something he had to do alone.

He drove on through the night, the anguish in his mind and spirit providing its own kind of energy which kept his weariness at bay. The thought of Jaryl saving his life at the cost of her baby preyed on him with every mile. That wasn't what he was about. With his size and strength he was supposed to be a protector of those smaller and weaker than himself. That concept had been drilled into him since his early teens, particularly by Captain Mike Saunders, the former Green Beret who taught him martial arts. Dr. Palance, Brennan's court-ordered psychiatrist, had steered the troubled teen into his old friend's military-style training program as a means of providing an outlet for his restless energy and a respite from the constant friction between the boy and his stepfather. Saunders, recognizing much of himself in the angry and frustrated young man, had taken Brennan under his wing, spending long hours with him in the gym and weight room, teaching him discipline and control of not only his flash-point temper, but also his developing electrical powers. It was he who instilled in the youth the principles of honor, responsibility and mental toughness, forging by example a personal code of conduct which helped Brennan become the man he was today.

_And what kind of man was that?_ he wondered bitterly. _The kind that may have brought about the death of a woman's unborn child, that's what._ His lips twisted grimly. His old mentor would have told him that he was jumping to conclusions, and accompanied the statement with a slap upside the head. _Focus! _came the echo of his mentor's voice._ There's nothing you can do until you know the truth._ That's just what Brennan intended to find out.

The GPS signaled his arrival, so he pulled off the road onto a wide, hedge-lined drive. About a hundred feet in stood a tall, elegant wrought iron gate lit by two pairs of spotlights. A guard shack stood to one side. In the distance he could see the lighted windows of a palatial mansion and the rooftops of some smaller outbuildings. Brennan brought the Mustang to a halt in front of the gate, whistling silently at even the little bit of the estate he could see through the darkness. Matt must have bucks up the wazoo.

The uniformed security guard, a younger man with close-cropped brown hair, looked up at the car's approach. When it stopped he walked up to the vehicle and bent down a little to get a good look at the visitor. Brennan rolled down his window and rested his forearm on the sill.

"Can I help you, sir?"

_A rookie_, the elemental decided instantly. _He's too close_._ I could take him easy, even without my powers._

"Brennan Mulwray to see Matthew Star."

The guard gave him an odd look at this request, but his response was one of professional politeness.

"I'm sorry, sir, but we don't accept visitors at this hour," he said, "Perhaps you could return tomorrow."

Brennan was too keyed up to keep the impatience out of his voice entirely. "Look, I know it's late, but this is very important. I would appreciate it if you could just call the house and let Matt know I'm here."

The young guard gave him another odd look and shook his head.

"I'm sorry, sir, but my orders are not to disturb the household at this time."

That sounded ominous. Brennan grabbed a stranglehold on his temper and tried another approach.

"Then let me talk to your supervisor." It was evident to Brennan that he wasn't going to get anywhere with this kid, and he was in no mood to be balked this close to his goal. Perhaps he would have better luck with someone who wasn't quite so green.

The guard started backing away warily, his hand drifting unobtrusively to the butt of his sidearm.

"I must ask you to leave now, sir."

Brennan's patience broke.

"I can't do that," he said softly. Lightning leaped from his fingertips, blasting the guard and sending his half-drawn weapon flying. He vaulted from the car and raced to the fallen man, seized his shoulders and dragged him back to the shack. Once there he laid the man down and went to the back door that would get him to the other side of the gate. It was locked, just as he expected. What he didn't expect was that the lock could only be accessed by an authorized retinal scan.

"Damn," he muttered. That left him with a couple of options. He could try zapping it, which may or may not set off an alarm; he could try to hoist the unconscious guard up to the scanner and hold his eye open. Or he could choose Door Number 3.

Brennan darted outside and surveyed the fence, mapping out a trajectory. Then, igniting both hands like the propulsion engines of a jetpack, he launched himself up and over the twenty foot fence. He came down about five feet inside, landing a little awkwardly on the brightly lit inner driveway. In the distance the lights of the mansion, and his answers, beckoned.

"Freeze!"

Pinned as he was in the glare of two spotlights, Brennan froze. A half dozen uniformed men came out of the darkness in a semi-circle, their weapons pointed right at his chest.

The leader of the group was a squarely-built man with the bearing of a professional soldier and some kind of officer's insignia on his collar. At his direction they took him into custody with cool efficiency, securing his arms behind his back and snapping some sort of collar around his neck which inhibited his electrical powers. A single command into a headset, and few minutes later a covered tram pulled up beside them. The officer got in beside the driver while three guards loaded him unceremoniously into the back.

Brennan expected to be taken to some austere interrogation room for extensive questioning, but instead they drove up to the back of the main house. With guards on each arm, he was hustled through back corridors, up stairs, and finally to an elevator, people gawking at him at every turn. Eventually he was ushered into what looked like a large, tastefully appointed den. A 52 inch plasma TV dominated one wall. Two overstuffed sofas and a couple of wing chairs upholstered in cream with thin, dark green stripes were grouped around a carved coffee table in the center of the room. End tables with matching lamps were conveniently placed at all four corners. A few paintings, some potted plants and even a couple of trees completed the ensemble, giving the room a homey touch without appearing cluttered. The guards stationed themselves in a triangular formation around him and waited.

A second door opened on the far side of the room. Brennan tensed. Matt came in, his pullover sweater and rumpled jeans looking like they had been donned in haste. He appeared tired and careworn…was it from grief? A half-healed cut above his right eye innocent of bandage or stitches gave him a sort of a gangster look to go with his forbidding expression. The officer approached and saluted crisply; together the two conferred in low tones for several moments. Brennan didn't catch what they were saying, but he couldn't decide if that was because they were speaking too quietly or because they were using the language Matt used back in the alley. Either way, it didn't take a genius to figure out that they were discussing him.

The officer nodded respectfully, then came over to Brennan and removed his restraints. Matt walked across the floor and came to a halt about eight feet away from the elemental, his face inscrutable. Seeing him, Brennan had a sudden, very uncomfortable thought. Until this moment he had been more focused on his own need to find out the truth; it hadn't occurred to him how Matt might feel about seeing him. Now it did.

Matt's expression became thunderous.

"What are you doing here?" he snapped.

Brennan hung his head, the apology he had been mentally rehearsing sticking in his throat. He couldn't blame the telepath for his reaction. If Jaryl had miscarried, his presence here must be like pouring salt into an open wound. Then Matt looked back over his shoulder, and Brennan realized that his question was actually meant for a new arrival. He looked over at the slender figure that had just crossed the threshold and stiffened in shock, his heart plummeting to his shoes.

The feisty, bright-eyed woman he met just over a day ago had been replaced by a pale shadow. The velvet dressing gown she wore was obviously an expensive garment, from the high, ruffled collar framing her face and long wing sleeves brought in at the wrist to the gathered waist which flared out to full skirts that fell to the floor, but something about the way she was standing made it seem that it was not so much covering as enveloping her in its brocade folds. The rich hunter green color made her pallid skin even whiter, almost translucent, nearly matching the hue of the thin white cotton headband holding back her unkempt burgundy tresses. She seemed smaller somehow, and frail, like she might collapse at any moment; her shoulders hunched forward, her face wan, her darkened eyes a bit sunken. She moved into the room slowly, heavily supported on either side by two young women wearing identical domestic-type uniforms.

Matt strode swiftly across the room. The maids gave way before him as he bent and swept his wife up into his arms in one fluid motion.

"What do you think you're doing?" he demanded furiously, his deep concern at her condition written plainly on his face, "You have no business being out of bed. You have got to rest."

She clung to him, her arms going around his neck.

"I know. But when I found out who it was – I had to come."

"No, you didn't," her husband retorted sharply, "You could have spoken to him later, or if worst came to worst I could have brought him to you. What you had to do was to stay put, not waste the little strength you have coming out here. This was foolhardy and reckless in the extreme, well beyond your usual level. And don't start rolling those big green eyes at me – I'm right, and you know it."

Jaryl sighed, acknowledging the validity of his anger. What happened yesterday had scared the hell out of him. As much as he always tried to hide it for her sake, she was well aware of how it tore him up to experience in his own way what she went through when she used her powers, particularly to such an extent. That was one of the down sides of their link, she reflected, but she could no more have refrained from helping Brennan than she could have left Jesse to bleed to death in that factory two years ago. Intellectually Matt understood and accepted that, just as he acknowledged her right to make that decision, but that acceptance didn't shield him from the anguish of seeing his beloved wife suffer from the injuries she took into her own body. Yesterday had been just about the worst she had ever gone through, and she knew it had been sheer torture for him. He had every right to be upset with her now, and to be honest, coming here had taxed her a lot more than she thought it would. He was probably right on that score.

The larger truth, though, was that although she had no idea why Brennan was here, she had to see him, to talk to him. Somehow, some way, it was important, so much so that it was worth the strain of dragging herself here, worth even the lectures she would no doubt be hearing for the next several days. She couldn't for the life of her explain why she felt that way. She just _knew,_ deep in her bones, with a conviction too strong to be questioned. Raising her head, she met her husband's glare, so filled with anger and anxiety, unflinchingly. One hand crept up to lightly touch lips pressed into a thin, stubborn line.

"I truly didn't think about you bringing Brennan to me," she said earnestly, "I should have, and I'm sorry. I promise I'll take better care of myself from now on. But please let me stay. I need to be here."

He glowered at her, and for a long moment she thought that her plea had fallen on deaf ears; that he was going to carry her straight back to their suite and set a pair of guards on her to make sure she stayed there. Then, ever so subtly, something inside him seemed to shift. Perhaps he felt the strength of her conviction, or maybe it was just the knowledge that she wouldn't ask it of him without a very good reason. She didn't know, but whatever it was, his granite mien softened. With the air of a man about to do something he knew was massively against his better judgment, he closed his eyes briefly and sighed in resignation. Strong arms tightened slightly, giving her a little squeeze.

"All right," he said, "But only for a few minutes."

He carried her over to the smaller of the two sofas. As he passed one of the end tables, its deep bottom drawer opened. A lovely patterned afghan hand-crocheted in forest colors rose from its depths, unfolding itself to king-sized length. It followed them to the sofa and hovered in mid-air while the sofa pillows piled themselves up into a comfortable back rest in the corner. Then it spread its woolen arms and wrapped itself snugly around her, the excess folding back across itself to cover her with two additional layers. Matt laid her down against the cushions, solicitously tucking closed the gaps made when he slipped his arms free. When he was satisfied that he had her as well bundled up as possible, he straightened and glanced over his shoulder. One of the overstuffed chairs slid across the floor to his hand; he gripped the back and tweaked it into a position close beside his wife and sat down. Another glance saw a second chair move in similar fashion to his telekinetic call, coming to a stop facing him at a conversational distance. He gestured to their guest to have a seat.

"Now then, suppose you tell us what this is all about."

Brennan hesitated, then reluctantly stepped forward and dropped into the chair. It was plush and comfortable, but it could just as easily have been made of stone for all he noticed. He sat with his shoulders slumped, his head lowered, wondering how to even begin. Remorse weighed on him like a heavy, smothering cloak. He couldn't bear to look at Jaryl, to see the pain and loss he was sure must be in her eyes.

It was true. One only had to look at her to know. She was so weak, so pale, perhaps even in shock, and it was all his fault. His injuries had been too extensive. Hell, for a while he had been dead! Yet she saved him, and doing so had caused her to lose her baby. What could he possibly say? 'I'm sorry' was so pitifully inadequate. He stared down at his big hands, his gut twisting with guilt. What right did he have to intrude on them at such a time? He felt lower than a snake.

"Brennan?"

Her gentle prompt bit him like the lash of a bullwhip.

"You shouldn't have done it," he mumbled brokenly, "You shouldn't have done it." 

The afghan rippled a bit as one white hand slipped from cover and reached tentatively toward his knee.

"Don't touch me!"

He wrenched away from her outstretched hand and leaped to his feet, anguish apparent in every line of his body. He couldn't bear for her to be subjected to the tidal wave of emotions engulfing him. Hadn't he already hurt her enough? Only when he had put the second sofa between them did he stop, his arms braced, his clenched hands crushing the cushioned top, his head dropped low to hide eyes stinging with grief.

"What?" Totally bewildered at the elemental's distress, Jaryl looked over at her husband to see if he had any kind of clue as to what was going on. At first Matt was just as uncomprehending as she, then suddenly he started, blinking rapidly a couple of times as a jolt of understanding hit him. Jaryl saw the change and started to ask a question, but he halted her with a warning gesture. He glanced toward the hovering guards.

"Give us a moment, please."

They weren't at all happy at leaving the couple alone with the distraught and unrestrained intruder, but still the three men nodded obediently and left the room with well-drilled military precision, the maids trailing in their wake. Once the door had closed behind them, Jaryl sat up a bit straighter and shifted a little toward her husband.

"Okay, so what ….?"

"He knows," Matt said simply.

Her eyes widened.

"About ….how?"

"Jesse, probably, when he accessed Naxcon's system."

"Oh." She pondered for a moment, then her head tilted in confusion. "But that still doesn't explain …."

"He thinksthat healing him caused you to miscarry."

"Stay out of my head!" Brennan snarled, his head snapping up, his hands unconsciously gripping the sofa so tightly that the blood drained from his knuckles. He looked ready to lunge at Matt, like he needed to fight, to break something, to do anything that would give him an outlet to dispel the emotions threatening to bury him.

The telepath rolled his eyes in exasperation. "Well, if you're going to shout something at the top of your lungs, don't blame other people for hearing you," he retorted with some asperity.

"Oh, Brennan..."

Now Jaryl understood the strange urgency she felt to come out here. Though he wore that street-tough stoicism like a suit of armor, she knew that inside he was bleeding as if from a score of stab wounds, his soul in torment. Being connected with him as long and as pervasively as she had been had somehow formed an unusual bond between them. It was nowhere near as comprehensive and intimate as the link she shared with Matt, but it had been enough to give her a glimpse into his mind and heart. She knew beyond all doubt that this would gnaw at him, weighing down a spirit that had known too much darkness already, and leave an indelible stain that might easily dominate his actions for the rest of his life. Jaryl refused to let that happen.

Brennan couldn't look at her. Corded veins stood out in his neck as he fought for some semblance of control, trying to steel himself against the pity and compassion he heard in her voice. He didn't deserve it.

"Brennan, please, come back and sit down. There's no reason for you to be so upset. It's not true. I am perfectly all right. We both are."

It took a moment for the impact of her words to penetrate his anguish. He turned, heedless of the moisture threatening to spill from his eyes, scarcely daring to believe that he heard her correctly.

"Your baby …?" His voice cracked.

"Is fine," she said gently, "Now please, come and sit down. We need to talk about this."

A boulder the size of Gibraltar slipped from his shoulders with a resounding crash, filling him with an enormous sense of relief. He closed his eyes briefly and tipped his head back, feeling almost a little dizzy as the emotional toxins drained from him, leaving him slightly weak in the knees. Jaryl spoke again in that same soft, sympathetic voice.

"Brennan, dear friend – are you going to sit down or do I have to kick your knee again?"

The incongruity of that statement made his eyes snap open. She was looking up at him with an amused smile, her eyes lightening with a hint of their former brilliant hue. That lifted his heart as much as her words did. He managed a weak grin. Swiping sheepishly at his eyes, he came back and sat down in the chair beside her.

"You're really all right?"

"Yes." She grimaced. "I know it doesn't show right now, but it will - in a couple of months I'll look like I swallowed a basketball."

"And will probably be craving ice cream and pickles," Matt chimed in.

"Oh, please," she sniffed haughtily, "I'd never crave anything so ordinary. Cherries jubilee and corn dogs are more my speed."

She extended her hand. Brennan hesitated, afraid that she might try to draw the aches and weakness from him, or at the very least be deluged by his chaotic emotions.

"It's all right – I won't be able to read you." She touched the pearly white band circling her head. "This psionic blocker creates a shield that prevents me from receiving empathic impressions, even by touch – which for the most part rather sucks, but for now it's necessary because for the time being my usual defenses are non-existent. Without it I'd be bombarded by the emotions and physical sensations of nearly everyone in the building. The blocker insulates me from all that; it even dampens my link with Matt somewhat. That also sucks, but that's the way it is."

She held out her hand again. Brennan took it this time, coming to the edge of his seat and leaning well forward so she wouldn't have to reach. A renewed pang of guilt stabbed him when he felt how cold it was. He brought his other hand over, encasing hers between his in an attempt to warm it.

Jaryl took a couple of slow, deep breaths and looked up at him.

"Now then – I understand how you feel about all this, but we need to get a few things straight. One: Yes, the energy drain involved was huge and debilitating. There's no denying that. Two: In a couple of days I'll be back to my usual charming self and driving my incredibly tolerant husband bananas. Three: You would have died."

"You should have let me die! Do you think I would have wanted to live at that price?"

"Four, and most importantly…" she overrode him impatiently, and here some of the old fire gleamed in her eyes as she leaned forward, "I knew exactly what I was doing when I started. I weighed the extent of your injuries, and the risks, against my own abilities. I made my own decision, which, I might add, you were in no position to challenge - either then or now."

She impaled him with the direct look of someone who wanted to make sure her message was received with crystalline clarity, and held it until his gaze dropped. Then she softened, one corner of her mouth curving upward. "You should also know that if I found that I couldn't save you, I'd have withdrawn. So you need to stop beating yourself up over this. It happened, and we all lived through it. It's over. History. Dump the misplaced guilt and get over it."

"How can I get over it?" Brennan's voice thickened, and he swallowed hard. Jaryl was lying through her teeth; somehow he _knew_ that; knew it with a certainty that went clear to his core. Withdrawing meant surrendering, and there was no more surrender in her than there was in himself. If he needed confirmation, all he had to do was look at Matt. The telepath had remained silent, perhaps sensing that this was something the two of them had to hash out between them, but the haunted look in his eyes revealed everything. "Jesse gave me the gist of what happened. Those injuries should have killed me, and yet you took them into your own body. You risked your life, and your child's, to save mine. How could you do that?"

"Because you were there for me," she said simply, "If you hadn't offered Matt your help, if Jesse hadn't found the crucial bit of information that led you to Naxcon, if Mutant X hadn't helped Matt rescue me literally in the nick of time …."

She took a breath, and then another. "The bottom line is that if you hadn't been there, you wouldn't have been hurt. How could I, in all honor, not help you when you needed it?"

"It's not the same," he insisted, "I only risked my own life. You risked so much more."

"The risk wasn't as great as you think," she said evenly, "I knew going in that I wouldn't be doing this alone. I had powerful backup."

Brennan nodded. "Matt."

"No, Brennan. Not Matt. You."

"Unconscious," he retorted bitterly, "Some backup."

She shook her head. "Not where we were. In that place, you were a huge factor."

He started to ask a question. She forestalled him with a touch, pausing as she searched for words to make him comprehend.

"You're a warrior, Brennan, a warrior to the bone, with an incredible will to live. Spirit that strong has power beyond the physical realm. Energy is energy, after all, in whatever form. In that place you could fight, and you did, with a fierceness that would have done a Roman gladiator proud. That's where you made the difference."

"I don't understand."

"When I heal someone, the connection is physical as well as mental," she explained slowly, "The injured areas almost merge – heart to heart, bone to bone. For a time, particularly with severe trauma, vital functions may have to be shared. I have to be able to keep things like pulse and respiration going, because if one of us goes, we both go."

Brennan stared at her. "Are you saying that your heart …kept mine beating?"

"That's the way it usually works. This time, though, things got a bit …complicated. That's where you stepped in."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not sure how to explain it because it's never happened before. Suddenly you were just _there_ – your energy, your essence, actively taking over the vital functions, keeping us going. To use mechanic's terms, you kept the engine running while I made repairs. I didn't have to do both. I was able to concentrate on healing and still safeguard my child." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Don't you remember the cave?"

That shocked him right to the core.

"Cave? But … that was just a dream."

"A metaphor, actually, created by your mind, but no less real for all that. The fighting … once or twice your body wanted to quit, but you refused to surrender. You kept us safe while I did what had to be done."

She gave him a weary smile.

"So you see – you really did make a big difference."

Brennan shook his head. There was nothing heroic in what he did – what she said he did, he corrected himself, since he had no memory of it. That was just pure survival. The fact remained that she shouldn't have been in that position to begin with.

"You still shouldn't have taken the risk," he insisted stubbornly, "Not for me. Things went wrong. Your baby …"

"All right, let's talk about my baby. That's something else you should know."

Her eyes bored into his with fierce intensity.

"They would have taken him. I heard them discussing it. They would have taken him away, and his life would have been a living hell as a lab rat in one experiment after another to find out if he inherited my powers. If he did, the soulless bastards would have tortured him repeatedly just to study how they work – and because he's Matt's son as well as mine. One of them even wondered aloud if once he got older, they would be able to dissect him alive and then watch him heal. And you don't even want to know about their plans for me."

Point taken. Brennan could concede that much, at least. He still didn't like it, not by a long shot, but he was coming to grips with the idea that it wasn't his place to question her actions. She evidently recognized his capitulation and was satisfied with it because the fierceness left her, and she let her head relax against the cushions.

He realized something was wrong in the next breath when her hand slipped limply from his and her body started to sag a little sideways. Something in her eyes seemed to waver, like a candle's flame flickering just before it went out. Alarmed, Brennan froze, not knowing what to do, but Matt was already in motion, kneeling at her side in the next instant and gathering her into his arms. The elemental gave way quickly, rising to his feet and pushing the chair aside to give him room.

"All right, that's it," Matt insisted in a voice that brooked no argument, "You're going back to bed right now."

Jaryl tried to prop open her heavy, drooping eyelids without a lot of success.

"You're hovering again," she protested feebly. A shiver rippled through her body.

"Gee, I can't imagine why," her husband retorted sardonically, "You're chilled to the bone, you've lost the little color you had, and you're so weak you're about to pass out. Why would I be hovering?"

He lifted her, afghan and all, and got to his feet. Her head fell limply onto his shoulder. She snuggled against him unconsciously, making a contented sound. The hazy and totally irrelevant thought crossed her mind that, even at times like this when she knew she was working his very last nerve, there was no place she would rather be than in this man's arms.

"Poor Matt," she murmured dreamily, "I really do drive you crazy sometimes, don't I?"

Matt's forbidding expression slowly softened.

"Yes, my love, you do," he admitted after a moment, his ire almost but not completely draining away. He kissed the top of her head lightly, and his voice became warm and tender. "But I guess I wouldn't have it any other way."

Feeling uncomfortably intrusive, Brennan started to edge toward the door.

"I should go," he began, hoping his wobbling legs were up to the task. The physical exertions and emotional stress of the evening was hitting him with a vengeance. He'd be lucky to make it to wherever Security put the Mustang. Matt threw him a sharp look.

"You're not going anywhere," he corrected in the same commanding tone, "You're nearly out on your feet as well, and you're certainly in no condition to drive. You'll spend the night with us." He glanced away and Brennan thought he saw something flicker in his eyes. He opened his mouth to object, but Jaryl stirred in her husband's arms.

"Just go with it, Brennan," she advised in slow, exhausted words he had to strain to catch, "There's no arguing with him when he's like this."

Matt frowned at her.

"You should remember that more often."

Her lips twitched faintly in a Mona Lisa-like smile. "Yes, dear."

Matt's scowl deepened, making it plain that he wasn't buying this show of meek obedience in the slightest, even in her condition. Whether she was aware of it or not, however, remained an open question. Her eyes had already drifted closed.

Matt looked up and caught Brennan's eye.

"By the way, I'd appreciate your discretion about all this," he said, "It's going to be an absolute zoo around here once the news gets out that she's pregnant, and I'd just as soon delay the inevitable for as long as we can."

Brennan nodded. "Of course," he said. It was the least he could do.

The door opened, and a middle-aged man in a dark suit entered. Brennan guessed that Matt had summoned him telepathically, but he had no need to speculate what the man was doing here. He might as well have had 'butler' painted on his forehead.

"Karl will show you to a guest room," Matt said, "If there is anything you need, you have only to ask." He shifted his arms slightly, adjusting his grip on Jaryl's sleeping form. "Now if you'll excuse me…"

"Oh, yeah, sure." Brennan quickly hopped back out of the way. Matt bid him good night and carried his wife from the room.

Brennan was then escorted to a suite so luxurious that it put a five-star hotel to shame, with a bed he could practically land the Helix on. Karl started to describe some of the main features and amenities of the room, but the elemental listened with only half an ear. He was beat – so tired that all he wanted to do was crawl into bed and crash. His mind, though, had a will of its own and kept going back to Matt – the love and deep concern in his demeanor, his tender care of Jaryl as he held her in his arms despite his annoyance at her behavior, the undisguised affection in the way she snuggled against him. Brennan felt an unaccustomed and totally unexpected wave of envy sweep him as he watched the interplay between them.

What would it be like to hold his own woman like that?

He could picture it easily. She would be drowsing against his chest, soft and warm and trusting, her hair cascading over his shoulder, perhaps wrapped in a colorful blanket, her body rounding with his child. He would hold her tenderly, feeling proud, protective, and full of wonder at the miracle of life growing inside her. Most of all he would be content, with a sense of completeness that he had finally found something he had been searching for all his life.

Brennan had always loved kids and wanted some of his own someday, but it seemed like the yearning for a family had grown stronger in the past year, ever since his old high school flame, Becky Dolan, barreled back into his life claiming that her ten year old boy, Connor, was Brennan's son. The claim turned out to be a lie, but those few short hours thinking that he was a father had left their mark on the elemental's mind and heart. Now more and more his thoughts were turning toward the idea of settling down with the right woman and starting a family. The recent deaths of Adam and Emma only intensified those thoughts. Before he could always shunt them aside with reminders of the dangers of his life with Mutant X, a life he enjoyed and found fulfilling, and the ever-present threat of mutant genetic instability. He knew he could die at any time – yesterday was a good example – and he hadn't wanted to put any kid of his through that kind of trauma. He had experienced it himself when his fighter-pilot father had been shot down over the jungles of Vietnam and eventually killed. Brennan had never known him. That pain had been one of the driving factors behind his constant friction with his stepfather, and it made him vow that no child of his would ever go through that. Someday his life would be more stable, not quite so much live-in-the-moment. That would be time enough to think about having kids.

Now, suddenly, 'someday' wasn't so far away.

Karl departed. Brennan wearily shucked off his clothes and slid between the turned-down sheets, yawning copiously. He couldn't remember the last time he felt this wiped. No doubt his head would hit the pillow and he would be out like a light. His imagination, however, freed from its normal restraints by his exhaustion, wasn't through with him yet.

What if the woman in his arms was Shalimar?

His automatic reaction was one of denial. What left field did that come from? He didn't think of Shalimar that way. She was a good friend, a staunch teammate. She was family. She probably felt the same way about him. The whole idea was ridiculous.

_Why ridiculous?_ queried that unruly part of his brain. _She's all woman – beautiful, vibrant, and incredibly sexy. You've been attracted to each other from the start. She's smart, fun, and powerful enough to fight alongside you. You trust her. She has a wild streak as wide as yours. You understand each other. What's so ridiculous?_

That's still a long way from being in love, not to mention getting married and starting a family, his sense of reason (or maybe denial?) tried to argue back, though the rest of him wanted nothing more than to table the discussion and just sleep. He was way too tired to think straight anyway. Besides, Shal would never go for it. She doesn't want to be tied down; she likes the action too much. If I push it, she's just as likely to run in the opposite direction.

_So take it real slow. Use the ol' Mulwray charm. Bring her to you. _

We have a great relationship now. Why take the chance of screwing it up?

_No guts, no glory. Do you want her or not?_

He was still trying to figure out the answer to that question when slumber finally claimed him.

He was no closer to sorting out his chaotic mind when he met with Matt late the next morning to take leave of his host. Matt insisted on walking him out.

"How's Jaryl?" Brennan asked, trying not to feel self-conscious about the two suited men falling in behind them at a discreet distance. He could almost feel their suspicious eyes boring into his back.

"Weak as the proverbial kitten, but much better than when you last saw her," Matt replied, "She crashed hard last night, but at least it was quality rest. She'll be fine, although it will take longer than the couple of days she mentioned."

Brennan's jaw tightened.

"She shouldn't have come out here last night."

"I'm with you there," Matt agreed, "If I had any inkling of what she meant to do, I probably would have tied her to the bed or something. You'd think that by now I would know how her mind works. She gets an idea in her head, something she feels strongly about, and she just takes the bit in her teeth." His facial muscles twisted sardonically. "You may not have noticed this, but my blushing bride can be a wee bit impulsive."

Brennan noticed, all right. He felt a phantom twinge in his knee as he remembered how Jaryl had attacked him before he had a chance to tell her that he was one of the good guys.

"'Impulsive' is right," he agreed ruefully, "She took me out before I hardly had the chance to say a word."

Matt chuckled and clapped him on the back.

"Welcome to the club. If it makes you feel any better, the first time we met she nearly kicked my teeth down my throat."

They walked on, the two bodyguards following unobtrusively. The place was like a palace, huge and ornate, though this section had the feel of behind-the-scenes functionality, full of people bustling here and there. Brennan took it in only superficially. He was silent and seemed preoccupied. Matt threw him a sideways glance.

"There's something still bothering you, isn't there?" he asked.

Brennan hesitated.

"I've been thinking about Jaryl, and everything she went through," he said after a moment, "I just don't understand how you could let her do that."

"Like she told you - it was her decision to make."

"But she might have …" Matt shot him a warning look, nodding toward a harried-looking office worker type scurrying past them. Brennan obligingly dropped his voice without missing a beat. " … miscarried, she might have died. Your wife, your child. How could you allow her to take such a risk?"

Matt halted and faced the taller man.

"What you're saying is that, as her husband, I should have stopped her."

Brennan looked away, flushing guiltily. He hadn't meant it in an accusatory way. It was a man's responsibility, after all, to protect his wife, even from herself. It might be more difficult with a woman as powerful and strong willed as Jaryl (_or Shalimar?_) but that didn't mean that responsibility could be abdicated. He just didn't understand why Matt hadn't prevented her from doing it.

Matt gestured down the corridor, and they resumed walking in silence as the telepath tried to gather his thoughts. Finally he spoke.

"What you have to understand is that to be truly successful, any marriage or similar relationship must be a partnership, a blending of strengths and weaknesses to make a stronger whole," he began, "Decisions have to be shared equally. That is especially important and correspondingly difficult for people like us, because physical danger is so much a part of our lives. In this particular case, Jaryl was sure that she could heal you, even knowing how badly you were hurt, without lasting harm to herself or our child. In that respect, she had the greatest knowledge of the situation. She knew how afraid I was for her and the baby; she was aware I knew how risky it was for them both. She had to take my feelings into consideration, and she did, but in the end, knowing her own abilities even better than I, she was sure she could handle it, and she felt honor-bound to try. What it boils down to is that she was asking for my trust. I couldn't say no."

"That's the hell of loving such a strong woman," he went on, "As much as you want to shield her from danger, sometimes you have to let go of that protectiveness and respect her abilities and decisions, right or wrong. That's a hard lesson for a man to learn. We want, we need, to protect our women. It's a very primal - Jaryl says chauvinistic – instinct, hard-wired into our chromosomes. But if you truly love her, you have to respect and trust her as well. You can't take the decision out of her hands. You can violently disagree…," A rueful smile touched his lips and vanished. "…even twist your guts into bloody, chewed-up chunks of ice when things go wrong …, but in the end you can't deny her the right to make the decision, or else you diminish her equality in the partnership. Once in a while she may acquiesce because she recognizes that the issue isn't any lack of confidence in her power or skill, but rather of your need to protect her – not that such acquiescence happens very often – but still the choice in that instance must be hers."

Matt sighed. "I'm not saying this very well; I guess because I've never tried to put it into words before. There has never been the need, connected as we are. But love, I think, means loving the person for who and what they are, accepting the light and dark, good and bad, even the little things that drive you crazy. 'For better or for worse', as the saying goes. The reverse is true as well and equally hard for her to learn; if she loves you, she has to acknowledge your right to have those feelings, and understand and accept your instinct, your need, to shelter and protect her, even when she wants to beat you senseless with a baseball bat for being overprotective."

Brennan let that notion seep in, but he couldn't let it go entirely. "But what if you're wrong?" he asked, "What if, in this case, she couldn't have handled it? What if she had died, or miscarried?"

"That's the nightmare," Matt acknowledged, a haunted look shadowing his face, "I don't know what I would have done, assuming in the case of the former that I would survive myself, given the symbiotic nature of our link. The jury is still out on that one. I think that may be the ultimate test of love – being able to conquer your own fear enough to trust your partner in an extreme situation. It's a very delicate balancing act. You won't always be able to do it, maybe most of the time you won't be able to do it, but the important thing is to honestly try. Trust like that is the steel that binds you together, and let me tell you, no matter how many gray hairs she gives you …" and here he cast a loving smile at the ceiling toward where his lady was resting, and felt the affectionate caress of her thoughts in return, " … the results are well worth it, because when you find that balance, you have a woman who is what Jaryl is to me - my best friend, my partner, my love….the other half of my soul. She's been more to me than anyone can ever know."

Brennan digested this thoughtfully. He couldn't help drawing parallels between Jaryl and Shalimar. Both women were fearless and sometimes reckless. Both were powerful and stubborn. Both were beautiful and confident enough in themselves to show their softer sides without embarrassment or compromise. And both had men who worried about them. 

Why was Matt was telling him all this? Was it because once upon a time he had been where Brennan was now, confused, reluctant and yearning all at the same time about a deeper relationship with another strong woman? Was he encouraging the elemental to just go for it? Brennan rather thought so, but that was easy for Matt to say. He had a mental link with his woman which told him what she was thinking. Brennan had no such advantage. Hell, he didn't even know his own mind! He still didn't have an answer to the question he asked himself last night; he wasn't even sure if he wanted to pursue an answer. Why upset the status quo? He couldn't afford to blow it. And yet - Matt was telling him, showing him, that such a relationship could work. Maybe, just maybe, one day Brennan could make it work for himself. He just needed time to get it all straight in his mind.

With an effort he pulled himself back to a safer topic.

"I take it that Jaryl has given you a lot of gray hairs."

Matt ran his fingers through his jet black hair, his expression rueful. "She insists we're pretty much equal it that department, but she has this problem with looking before she leaps, which is what tends to get her into trouble."

"How much trouble was really she in?"

Matt could see that Brennan needed him to answer honestly. "A lot," he admitted, "We all were, but Jaryl in particular. Your condition at the time was such that if we'd have tried to move you, it would have killed you both, and probably taken me out as well. Jaryl did the only thing she could."

Brennan tensed. "What, exactly, did she do?"

"You had a lot of damage – multiple fractures, internal bleeding, trauma to a couple of major organs. Up to that point she was able to work fairly slowly and carefully; take care of one thing at a time. When Damien Acosta decided to take personal charge, that luxury went out the window. She had to act fast to get you travel ready, so she stopped being careful and just absorbed everything from you all at once."

Brennan's jaw dropped in shock and dismay.

"But she said she knew what she was getting into. That could have killed her!"

Matt shrugged. "She did know when she went in. She couldn't have anticipated she would have to accelerate things the way she did. It was very dangerous, and she did walk a tightrope for a bit, but she had no choice. We had to get out of there, or all of us would have been taken."

"She should have left me!"

Matt shook his head. "Not an option at that point, either morally or physically. She didn't have time to pick and choose which injuries to take and which to leave you with, so she just took everything and told Jesse to get you out of there. She figured that your teammates would take you to the Helix and I would come get her; she would use that time to get herself in some kind of condition to travel."

"But it didn't work out that way," Brennan objected, "Lexa said that when she tried to help her up, Jaryl screamed and collapsed."

Matt nodded. "With the magnitude of your other injuries she missed a sharp piece of rib that had snapped off and slipped down against an intestine," he explained, "When she tried to get up, the peculiar placement drove the shard right through. She had to divert her attention to healing that quickly so toxins didn't spill out and spread."

Brennan was aghast. Matt nodded.

"I know – I felt the same way at the time. But she was able to take care of it before it caused any additional problems. After that, it took quite a while for her to heal the injuries she took from you, and as you saw, the toll on her was extreme. She is on the mend, though, and will make a full recovery." The telepath stopped and faced the elemental seriously. "The long and the short of it is that she's safe at home now because of you and the others. To me, nothing else matters. I'm very grateful." His eyes bored into Brennan's. "I hope that one day you'll understand just how grateful."

He extended his hand. Brennan took it in silence, his face a study of conflicting emotions, wondering just how much the other man was picking up from him. Matt's features, however, gave nothing away. They continued on to the front of the building, where a uniformed guard snapped to attention and opened the door. The two men stepped outside onto the portico.

The black Mustang had been driven to the front of the mansion and now stood polished and ready at the curb, the keys dangling from the ignition. Brennan knew he should go, knew that by now his friends had discovered his absence and were probably frantic about not being able to reach him, but there was something else he had to ask.

"What's it like?" he asked quietly, "Having someone that much a part of you?"

Matt understood that Brennan wasn't referring to the connection he and Jaryl shared. He looked at Brennan with a new light rising in his dark eyes, his gaze far-seeing and filled with wonder, as if he were exploring the deepest mysteries of the universe.

"It's the most glorious, exhilarating, incredibly intimate and absolutely terrifying experience you can ever imagine," he said softly, "There are so many levels_. _It's the ultimate mix of strength and vulnerability. Most couples never get to experience it. They don't have the trust. I think we're lucky because many times the strongest bonds are formed by facing the storm together – adversity, or for people like us, actual battle. Jaryl and I take it all to a much higher degree because of our link, but I think that other people might make up for that somewhat because they _choose_ to embark on this unique relationship. Our joining came about as the result of a sort of psychic accident." He saw Brennan about to ask the obvious question, and pre-empted him with a dismissing wave of his hand. "Long story."

"How do you deal with having someone inside your head 24/7?"

"It's not as bad as it probably sounds," Matt replied, "And I'm so used to it now that, as you saw, I'm a basket case without it. Usually it's fairly benign, like having a radio on in the background all the time. Most of the sound is tuned out unless you're actually paying attention. And there are certain barriers that we respect. At its height it's …," He paused, searching for the words. "..Intense and magnificent. It's total sharing, instantaneous communication in its purest form, - nothing hidden, no lies, no chance of misunderstanding. Our minds are literally one." He thought a minute, and then grinned. "Of course, there _is_ a down side in that there's nothing hidden, no lies, and no chance of misunderstanding. That's where other people have an advantage. With us, there's not much chance of misinterpreting a nuance or saying that you didn't mean something." His grin widened. "That, and it's murder trying to surprise her for her birthday."

The two men walked down the steps to the waiting Mustang. Brennan opened the driver's door and slid behind the wheel. He started to close it behind him, but Matt held it open.

"If you or the others ever need help in any way," he said seriously, "Call on us. There is nothing too great or too small. If Jaryl and I are not here at the time, my staff has orders to render any assistance possible, and will get in touch with us wherever we happen to be."

They exchanged farewells, then Matt stepped back as Brennan closed the door and ignited the engine. The sleek machine started smoothly down the winding driveway. Matt watched the elemental until he was out of sight.

"And good luck with your own strong woman," he said very softly to no one in particular.

The Dominion's Council Master was trying to decide between a lunch of grilled mahi- mahi or Cajun swordfish when a strident beep sounded from his personal communication device. That particular number was given only to a very few, including a couple of field agents whose reports he wasn't necessarily ready to share with the rest of the Council, so he laid down the menu and reached into his breast pocket to answer it. Beside him, his second-in-command raised her eyebrows in silent interrogation. He listened briefly, asked a couple of terse questions, then hung up.

"Trouble?" Dominique asked.

"Mulwray has been released. Surveillance observed quite a cordial departure."

"I told you this would be a problem. Mulwray no doubt feels indebted to them, and that will influence the rest of the team. Mutant X will have to be neutralized before we move in on Target Alpha."

"I'm well aware of that," he said icily, "But we've only just begun gathering the necessary intelligence; we're weeks away from being able to mount a successful assault. In the meantime, we still have Damien Acosta and his manufactured mutants to deal with. I intend to make extensive use of Mutant X against him, particularly since they're already motivated to take him on. As long as they remain ignorant of our long-range plans they're much more of an asset than a liability."

"And if they begin to suspect?"

"Just as we planned," he answered casually, picking up his menu once again, "Once they have outlived their usefulness, they will be terminated and the remains moved to cold storage for future study. Research already has the morgue drawers prepared. I expect those slots will be occupied before the year is out."

He perused the menu with an unhurried air.

"I believe I'll have the mahi-mahi…."

The End

Author's Note: I would like to thank my readers from around the world for sticking with this very long story until its conclusion – which really isn't an ending, but rather a beginning as Brennan and Shalimar become closer and the cancer that is The Dominion begins to show itself. I have tried to stay within the established story line of the series, just shine a little bit of light on the human side of the characters. I have been focusing more on Brennan and Shalimar, but for those fans of Jesse and Lexa – rest assured that I have some interesting things in mind for them as well.

I hope you all have enjoyed this tale as much as I have enjoyed writing it. I would really like to hear your comments and questions. You can email me through the FanFiction site and/or post reviews.

Until next time….. Stillwaterrs

16


End file.
